Unmemorable Firsts
by lunchables
Summary: Highschool AU - Firsts can be memorable. Beca's and Chloe's are seemingly not - just regular high school encounters. So why are they so special?
1. Sophomore Year

Firsts can have a special bloom. They can be cute, or maybe romantic. Sometimes awkward. Like a flutter of eyelashes; an exchange of innocent regards with a shy, obstructed smile. Sometimes feet bump beneath a table awkwardly, but neither party has the proportional amount of courage to break the contact. Gazes lock, but words die under their tongues because they aren't needed. These first interactions are special. They're cute, they're romantic. They're memorable.

The first time Beca spoke to Chloe was the first day of sophomore year. Chloe lurched to a breathless halt outside her history class; she was two minutes late, but the entire class was lazily lounged outside the shadowed room. Chloe leered on her toes to glance over the heads still lingering around the door and through the window, before promptly smacking her heels onto the linoleum with a tick of her tongue defeatedly.

"Is he not there, or something?" she had inquired, more a general question that everyone apparently felt wasn't worth their time to answer. Chloe helplessly attempted to meet anyone's gaze, and she almost flipped any hopes away with a dusty finger.

But Beca was leaning against the edge of a locker, closest to the door with lanky arms crossed beneath her torso against her ribcage. She looked bored. She connected Chloe's lolling eyeballs a bit lazily. She nodded. "Door's locked." Braces peaked through her parted lips.

It was a first. No one could deny that. Beca had never seen this girl before. Her red hair was unfamiliar and she had a smudge of crusted drool in the corner of her lip. But she initiated their _first_first. It wasn't cute, it wasn't special, it wasn't romantic. But it was first.

"Can I borrow a pen?" Beca hissed between crooked teeth. It's been thirteen days and a three units have already gone by in History. She still had braces and there was a zit in the corner of her nose now. Chloe barely looked up from her notebook she'd doodled a boy's name from chorus on. Hearts surrounded it like beating butterflies; synchronized, precise, abstract.

Beca didn't notice and Chloe handed her a purple pen.

But Chloe glanced from her paper for a crackling second to watch Beca scribble Mr. Handlet's name on the inside of her history binder, and again on her notebook. Nothing clicked, and she finished her hearts.

"So, are you doing anything this weekend?"

She couldn't exactly pin a name to his unfamiliar face, but she knew she knew him personally from the way his eyes glowed when he'd approached her, and his voice sounded like something she'd heard before.

He was tall and scrawny. If he wanted to kiss her, he'd have to buckle those bony knees and tilt his head at an awkward angle. He'd probably try when they were sitting in ugly theatre seats with root beer spilled on his sneakers, smelling like burned popcorn. But he didn't have braces and he had a cute smile. Beca quirked her jaw to prepare an easy shaking of the head, maybe offer some words further proving her gesture, but a blur of red nudged her shoulder and staggered her back.

Chloe mumbled "Sorry," as she jogged down the hall, her hand lingering slightly on Beca's shoulder in apology. Beca barely paid her attention.

"I'm not busy."

She still had braces, though.

Mr. Handlet stood at the front of the room. His hips were crooked, one end slanted towards the ground. He broke his hip last February on a hiking trip, and now he walked like a billboard was strapped to his ass. But he was old, and Chloe didn't like to think about that. He didn't have a lot of hair either. His hips were still awkward when she raised her hand.

"Are you going to give us the prompts for the debate before, or is it supposed to be improvised?"

He clasped his hands together, rubbing coarse palms respectively. There was a burn beneath his left index knuckle from the ashes of a cigar, and Chloe was convinced his fingers would feel like chopped scraps of metal if she touched them. But she didn't, because she liked to pretend the world was perfect and everyone had soft hands. Mr. Handlet didn't help, because his hands didn't look supple enough.

"No, I'll give them to you. You can prepare with a partner for the rest of uh..." his eyes flickered to the clock on the right side of the room, dull eyes squinting. He mumbled to himself a few scattered, incoherent words. After a stiff clearing of his throat, he continued. "For the rest of today's period and tomorrow. The debate will be on Friday. Make sure to prepare three sets of rebuttals for an argument against your topic."

He ventured on about more miniscule details, going in about the little improvisation that would be expected of them (the side they were taking would be anonymous until the given day) and a brainstorming idea he hinted at for preparing an outline.

Chloe's chin was in her palm and she scratched the back of her neck, because she didn't care. She needed a capable partner, someone who had a grasp at the material and could support themselves. The worst part about the class was its mandation; every sophomore was required to take it, no exceptions. What it basically meant is half the students in any given class didn't know what they were doing and were one of the many contributions to a lower grade in any group assignment or project.

She looked about the circular formation of desks, counting off. Mr. Handlet typically chose partners by some sort of numbering system. Whether it was naming off straight pairs who sat consecutively, or people with a matching number would work together. Usually it was easy to decide how he'd figure it, but Chloe was swamped with nearly half the class as possible answers, and so far her options weren't looking good.

It was three months into the school year. The first quarter has just ended, report cards were flagged in the hallway, and the rare, early rejection letter was printed and sealed. The _Wall of Shame _was already in place in the guidance hallway, the piece of school where friends would snatch rejection letters from beneath their friends' feet and slab them on that wall. The _Wall of Limbo_, for wait-listed students, remained empty.

When Mr. Handlet began announcing partners, Chloe tuned in intently. "Stacie and Cynthia... you two will be debating with Donald and Amy... yes just sit on the opposite side... yep... Lily and Chloe... how about you dispute with Bumper and Beca..."

Chloe lifted her chin and silently dropped her hand to the desk. She hastily scanned the desks again, looking for Lily who... was asleep? Chloe frowned.

Chloe scooted her desk joltingly against Lily's a few minutes later, before sitting back down. The girl calmly looked up with wide, dark eyes, an uneasy composure to her that made Chloe wearily retract as she deliberately flipped open her notebook. Lily's long hair was tangled in the spiral of her own notebook. It dangled like a broken ornament and the girl's lazy eyes were swollen. She had a sticky note stuck to her face.

"What are we doing?" she whispered in a daze, looking around her hurriedly after stoically slipping her notebook and the paper down onto her desk.

Chloe pulled her binder out. "Debate." Her answer generated on the tip of her tongue for a few minutes as she reevaluated and focused on Lily's words, making sure she'd heard correctly.

"Oh."

Friday eventually turned on its headlights, and Lily and Chloe had both come to a mutual decision on the divided work in preparation. They were both familiar of each given topic enough for if Mr. Hadlet individually selected either of them to present and rebut, they'd give it right back with no problem. Mind you, he might lean in with propped elbows and an ear fluctuated out to catch anything Lily says, but he'd take it.

However, when they tracked muddy shoes into the history room fourth period, a short, thin man with a goatee and a nervous mustache was standing at the front of the room. He was young, maybe mid twenties, but his hairline was pushing the limit. His forehead was small and concise because of this, and with all the facial hair, it made his round face seem ridiculously small, like an awkwardly reversed cartoon character.

Chloe had her notes organized in a folder, venn-diagrams scribbled, comparisons and contrasts, pros and cons. It was prepared, shuffled into practical file. Anticipated formation swirled around her in a pretty little blue sundress with a look determination. Chloe Beale was going to _crush_this debate. She had curls tucked into a hair tie and her breath tasted fresh inside her mouth. She could do this. She could _nail_it.

**"**At least they have a _chance_to gain a higher status in society. In Sparta, slaves - and not to mention women - they're going to be dirt for their entire lives with no other options." **  
**Okay, first of all, it's not like either of them had a personal attachment to these conflicts and defenses. But Chloe was getting so obsessive about defending Sparta to Beca and Bumper that her nails were clawing into the skin where her dress ended at her thighs and she was leaning forward across the desk towards the short, skinny brunette. Lily was simply sitting erected in her seat, mildly regarding Chloe as she filled in the figurative slots needed for them to ace the project, and occasionally chewed on the end of her erase. In the midst of one of Bumper's rebuttals, she'd taken a marker and written _Die_backwards on the end of the eraser, tapping it on her sheet like a stamp. Chloe had begun to stammer as she stared incomprehensibly at the Asian before finding a state of equilibrium and embarking confidently back into the quarrel.**  
**Bumper was just as disinterested as Lily, and he sat back in his chair, picking at a scab on his elbow before shifting every now and then. His hand would disappear for a second under the table occasionally, and Chloe did her best to ignore it. **  
**It might as well have been a one-on-one solo for Beca and Chloe. The substitute for Mr. Handlet wasn't throwing in any spontaneous bonus rounds or challenging partners. He'd been more than glad to let the partners go at it, since they'd all seemed to have a more or less intellectual understanding of what was required of them that day. A tripod was set up right beside them, filming the scene displayed to the entire class, for Mr. Handlet to review for himself.

Lily and Bumper might as well have been just like the rest of their audience, however, because people were whispering lazily to each other, having nonchalant sidebars through their hard work. None of them cared, and when each of them came up and it was time for their ticket to be slashed, no one else would either.

But Beca was snorting through her fingers as she shook her head. "Sparta didn't even _have_slaves. They were at least decent enough human beings to not result to _that_type of cruelty."

Chloe crunched her molars together like she was eating, and needles rose in her throat and nostrils. "Fine, _Hetlots_. Maybe they weren't legally classified as actual slaves, but they were treated just as harshly as slaves in any other city-state. Athens treated their own so much better than most."

It was a boomerang soaring back and forth, a pendulum rocketing in one direction before swerving back to the other as the ugly yellow-stained walls crumbled in on her like bread crumbs. It was the most informal debate either had gotten themselves riled into, probably because Mr. Handlet wasn't there to tighten the stitches and fix ties.

But maybe it was also because this girl with crooked teeth but an oddly cute smile was sitting across from Chloe, _challenging_her 4.2 GPA with rebuttals she already knew by heart. God, if she'd just been given the side Beca was elected for, she'd be kicking more ass than she was now. It was simply poor luck and a malfunctioned history, because neither could change how their views and actions had played out. And neither chose which side they were on, which side they believed in more.

And Chloe _definitely_wasn't on the right one then.

She scowled; her lower lip jutted inside between prominent teeth as the timer beeped, cutting Beca off mid-sentence. It didn't matter, because she still won. Chloe had clearly and deliberately given an entire lifetime of dedication to this project that would probably have a 1%, if not less, impact on her overall History grade, which was only a seventh of her GPA. She knew she would get in the A range, maybe an an upper scale of that portion. But still, it wasn't satisfying to have this scrawny little girl seize her jewels and break a set of tallies especially reserved for personal gains.

It was a first argument. It was a first lash of not-so-viscous words; but maybe it would be a first conversation, too.

"Hey!"

She didn't stop.**  
**Shit.**  
**Beca didn't know her name. Shit. She was so unbearably familiar whenever she looked at her, unlike so many empty faces. But the name was blurry.**  
**A handful of heads had already turned when she let out that yelp as she jogged through the hall, but none of them were the redhead she'd had a bit too intensely affronted in what was meant to be a professional and educational withdrawal from normal classes. The bodies were slipperily flowing too fast and raggedly, and she was having difficulties lugging her bulky sack along with her over her shoulder as she tried to inch between close spaces to catch up with the read head.**  
**Charlotte?**  
**She tried it, shouting it out, but her curls were still bouncing in the same rhythm, and she didn't even flinch.**  
**Fuck.**  
**And she was gone.

Chloe pushed her fries around on her tray, lifting a delicate eyebrow into her forehead as she met her friend's eyes. "I don't need a boyfriend," was her retort to the petite blonde, the ultimate Barbie of looks with her long legs and mature face.

Aubrey plucked a greasy stick from Chloe's tray, twisting it like a pencil between her thumb and forefinger, before stuffing the tip between her perfect teeth. She wiggled her eyebrows. "You do for the Holiday dance. And I'm not going to let you third-wheel my date again this year. It was depressing enough last year."**  
**Chloe's eyes melted as she sunk into her tan skin and she sat up straighter with an objection lurching. "You said you were fine with it! A-And that I wasn't a third wheel." A stricken pout manicured her contorted features, and she continued to play with her food after looking down.**  
**A pretty smirk lit Aubrey's face, and she shrugged gracefully. "I didn't want you to feel bad. It was your freshman year. But this is _my_junior year, and I want to get _alone_with Luke this time, if you know what I mean." She winked dramatically, snapping her teeth at the air for an added effect. Chloe's cheeks rouged but she rolled her eyes. **  
"**There's no one I _want_to go with," she claimed sincerely, palming the table softly. The boy from Chorus stopped coming to classes, and the only time he ever spoke to her was when he tried to get her to do his homework.

She didn't.

Her eyebrows lifted as she waited for Aubrey to challenge that, or perhaps slap at her hand and spin around in her bar, look around the cafeteria as she gave Chloe an ultimatum of decently enough guys for her to take her pick with.

She was actually more or less correct with her augury, because Aubrey began to twirl in her seat, but she was cut off by a familiar, small brunette circling around the table like a vulture and slipping into the seat beside Aubrey, leaning into her space as she began to nervously spew words out with a hushed tone.**  
"**Jesse wants me to meet his _mom_," she deadpanned to the blonde, teeth clenching irritably after shaking her head.**  
**Beca was crossing her arms now, leaning against the table as she faced the rest of the room, ignoring Chloe and ranting off to Aubrey. "Dude, how the fuck am I supposed to meet his mom? She owns a _bakery_. Like, sugary sweet shit. She's probably this round little fairy godmother I'd feel guilty _speaking _to with my nose ring in."**  
**Aubrey hastily put a pause to her conversation with her redheaded best friend, leaning closer to the brunette as well with a triumphant and scandalous grin. "This is a _good_thing Beca. Most guys don't even want to think about sealing the deal like that."**  
"**What _deal?_**" **She looked genuinely annoyed now, panic squirming under her fair skin. Her eyes briefly acknowledged Chloe, before quickly fleeting back to Aubrey. She committed a double-take, eyebrows furrowed as she abnormally recognized her, but the frown didn't fade, even when she focused on Aubrey again, saying nothing to Chloe. "What if he ends up wanting to meet _my_dad?"**  
**Aubrey chuckled, feigning sympathy as she put a hand on Beca's shoulder. "Beca, sweetie, this is absolutely not bad. He likes you, he thinks you're important. You should be thrilled."**  
**But Beca snorted sarcastically again like she had in the debate, and shook her head, looking a dozen octaves below pleased as she snapped "Yeah, well, I'm not." At that, she pushed herself to her feet and trotted off, head shaking from side to side. Chloe watched her walk off momentarily, wondering why she'd never seen Aubrey speak to her before then. As far as she knew, she'd been the only sophomore Aubrey would allow herself to speak to - something about a an upperclassman reputation she insisted on remaining golden - but they spoke as if they had an odd, but close, bond forged easily and smoothly.**  
**Chloe was going to ask her about it with a clicking mash of eyebrows, but Aubrey was resurrecting their old conversation. "_So_, how about him?"**  
**And thus began her offerings of sophomore and junior boys like they were dresses in a store. Beca fell from Chloe's mind and she continued to insist she didn't need any arm candy for a stupid dance.**  
**_First connection: check._

Beca was juggling her cemented messenger back, overfilling the brim and leaking dusty papers, overdue projects, and battered textbooks when a girl she had no recognition for stuffed a black and white flier under her nose. But from the way she met Beca's eyes and her chirpy pitch was a commonplace in her ears. "Hey Beca! You should consider joining crew, it's really fun and everyone loves it." Beca bit on her lip and raised her eyebrows like she remembered who this brunette was as she looked down on the flier advertising a team freshly started their new rowing year.

But the redhead's face was on it, and Beca knew it. Again, she frowned like she had in the cafeteria, this girl unwittingly native to her eyes. She had her arm slung around Aubrey, someone Beca had so commonly conversed with it was impossible to forget her face anymore, at least with her specific structures.

Beca nodded with feign enthusiasm, a perfunctory smile intact. "Sounds fun. I'll think about it."

She wouldn't, and she threw the flier with Chloe's face on it away. The girl began to cheerily skip away, pasting fliers out in others' faces with the same high-pitched avidity as before. Beca never joined crew, and the fliers dressing the walls never got her attention again.

But none of them had Chloe's face on them, either.

**"**_Attention all sophomores; please meet in the auditorium for a meeting discussing your financial plans and future fundraisers_." **  
**There was more, and the first semester was shutting its gates, but Jesse's hands were grabbing Beca's hips forcefully he had her pinned against a wall outside the art room. His rough fingers were scrabbling under her shirt as his sloppy, wet kisses tasted like tuna on her tongue. She'd grimaced once or twice when his tongue slicked across her the back of her teeth. He was too rough and her shoulder blades hurt, but he was distracted about his proposition of introducing her to his mother. He began to fumble his hands underneath the waistband of her jeans, and she pushed his hands away, her mouth retracting slightly. He swooped right back in, biting uncomfortably at her lip, but his hands moved upward to her hips and was safer boundaries.**  
**She shivered not out of pleasure and ended up pushing him away, wiping her lips. Her braces had been tightened last week and her mouth had a throbbing ache burrowed in her gums. The Holiday dance was in three weeks, and - if luck graced its presence in her fingertips - she'd have them screwed off and forgotten before then.**  
**She kissed Jesse goodbye one last time, wiggling her fingers towards the ceiling in gesture of the overhead speakers as she backed away slowly. Her smile felt too forced for a farewell to her boyfriend of a four months, and she bumped into a wall. Jesse chuckled with his arms crossed. He had some lip gloss smudged on his chin, and she would have told him but - she... simply didn't. He probably thought her clumsy and awkward feet were continuous curties as a homage to their relationship, but he read too many lines because there was no layering connotation to her crumpling and wobbly knees; she just was clumsy.**  
**He thought he knew her. Jesse definitely could memorize the miniscule freckles painting Beca's face, however few there were, and had the color of her eyes tucked into his back pocket. But he didn't know the first thing about her. If she had the motivation and was unusually inspired, she could record every little aspect of his life from every possible corner to boast about to the world, and they would all know him wholly too. But the most he could sum of Beca without redundantly repeating himself would be a few sentences, or a short essay at the most. _He_was tucked into her back pocket, because he fell under such an inconspicuous spell Beca never even meant to cast.**  
****

****Beca was one of the last to enter the auditorium. In fact, she was the last, and their class administrator had a thing about punctuality. His words died like wasps in the air, and his cold glare shooting across the room. A brisk glimpse at the clock on the wall was confirmation of her assertion, except it boosted her nerves because she was supposed to have been there ten minutes ago. Mr. Goodwin liked to endlessly crack that he'd rather you cut one of his classes - because of him, Science was her least favorite class - than be late. His reasoning was open-ended, therefore always dripping out her other ear as soon as it slipped inside. Whether she remembered it not, it wouldn't ever make sense.**  
**And so there she was - standing at the top of the auditorium with knitted fingers and awkward posture. Even from the distance, Mr. Goodwin gave her a skeptical look, and she balanced from foot to foot, riffling through the crowd of faces. None leaped out at her - she wasn't particularly friends with many people her own age. Since she began seeing Jesse, a junior now, she melted into his group of friends, and upperclassmen didn't view her as fresh-meat anymore. It was part of the reason she detested arriving to these gatherings, late or not, because it was impossible to find a place to sit. She was never early enough to find a section of seats isolated enough to avoid the awkward lip-shrugs and greetings, and so being _this_late would prove to be embarrassing. If there was one thing Beca hated, it was all eyes on her and drawing a circle around herself as a brand new center of attention.**  
**But then - Chloe was there. She'd been sitting in one of the upper rows, having also arrived last minute (otherwise she definitely would prefer the front row), and now she shimmied out of her aisle and jumped up the top step, grabbing Beca's hand. It was... soft. Like whipped cream.**  
"**It's about time," she'd greeted feignly, a voice just high enough to travel around the auditorium. Mr. Goodwin's face rose slightly as Chloe pulled Beca into an empty seat beside where she'd sat prior. Beca resisted Chloe's pull primarily, but the girl yanked on her to sit down. When Mr. Goodwin resumed his speech, occasionally tossing a cynical look at Beca, Chloe hissed to her "If you piss him off any more, you're done for."**  
**Beca didn't reply, curiously regarding over Chloe's waterfalling features. She wasn't returning the look, facing straight ahead into the crooked delves of the room expressionlessly, elbows on armrests with her wrists overlapped in her lap. Beca uncomfortably stirred in the cushioned seat, wishing she could find an unwashed dignity to also _place_this memorable face with a name. It was frustrating to the core, because this ginger was blinking in the background of every picture frame on her walls.

Beca cleared her throat, sinking back into the seat. God, her face felt so red. She'd so hastily slapped Chloe's hand away, and now she kept it cringed away from her, opposite rest. She wanted to scrounge an apology; yeah, for being abruptly snide and rude, but because she didn't know her name still. She didn't know who she was, except that she was good at debates and wore muddy shoes a lot. And sometimes she liked to squeeze into cute little dresses in the winter while her knees wobbled from the cold. Beca felt a 'sorry' mumbling on her crusty lips, but just as she opened her mouth, Chloe was on to her, darting narrowed eyes like a humming bird's as she leaned her face too close in with a breath too hot down her neck.

"What did I just say? Don't talk."

And so they didn't.

The meeting ended with surmising words Beca couldn't bother to lean her attention span towards. Beca crawled out of the seats with a gnawing desperation, leaping over the plastic railing. She jogged across to the wide-set doors, bearing no acknowledgement to the people swimming around her, when Mr. Goodwin leaned across the plastic white table with a hand holding his tie back as he called her name over the speakerphone. She jutted to a halt like she'd been gutted, and chomped down irritably on her lip.

She fell back with her chin raised, and as she turned, Chloe's head was lifted towards Mr. Goodwin and his stupid tie. She was fumbling with her backpack and a purple scarf around her neck that matched her jacket too much. She was surprisingly close in trail behind her, with her cinnamon scent and crazy eyes. As Mr. Goodwin slowly - very, very slowly - sailed up the steps with his ugly mustache, Chloe alas slipped out the doors last.

He rocked on his heels and jutted his tongue out against the inside of his cheek, looking Beca over condescendingly. "You were late."

No shit. "I was indeed."

"Can it, Mitchell." His mustache twitched.

Beca propped her jaw ajar with a sarcastic jab already rolling off her tongue, when another flash of skinny red hands breathed down her shoulders and tugged off her jacket. Beca lurched, swivelling her neck behind herself to see the double doors swinging shut silently, and Chloe smugly snatching her jacket off her shoulders. Chloe waved her a look not unlike the one she'd given during the meeting, and Beca felt a noose clamp her mouth shut as Chloe instantly smoothed out her vocal chords in the air.

"Here you are! I couldn't find you outside, I'm freezing - gimme that." She was already shrugging on Beca's jacket - Beca double-taked, sheering her eyes over Chloe's briefly bare shoulders. She'd shredded off the purple jacket at some point, the scarf too, and she looked naked without it. She hesitated in the midst of slipping Beca's jacket on, appearing innocent as ever. "You're not in trouble, are you? Oh, Mr. Goodwin, I just asked Bella- Beca!" She shot Beca a jittering look. "Beca, I just asked _Beca_if she'd run to my locker and grab my coat. You know how cold it gets in here... I didn't mean to make her late." She started waving her hands around in distracting movements, pulling them away from her words. "And then she came in and you were mad and she didn't have time to find me and I'm absolutely _freezing_."

Beca never heard her talk so much under one breath.

As if to correspond with Beca's thoughts, Chloe inhaled sharply, her chest rising between the flaps of Beca's jacket. She narrowed her eyes at Chloe inside her tight leather jacket. It looked somewhat out of place on a girl with splattered freckles, bright eyes, bright jeans, bright hair, bright _everything_- wearing something so dark that belonged to a pale girl and her dark eyes and dark jeans and dark hair and dark _everything _didn't fit in her routine. Beca fell into a pit of admiration around that, because Chloe was so easily capable of slipping into something dingy and cold, and grip it with a twist to dramatically reduce its negative aspects. She gave it this glowing flair Beca would look silly and sheepish if she tried to mimic it.

Mr. Goodwin alternated his gaze between the two of them uncertainly, prodding his tongue underneath his upper lip. It made his mustache shiver again, like a caterpillar. Maybe he had a collection of them burrowing in that greasy shrub stuck to his face. It wouldn't surprise her.

"Very well." He cocked his chin again a little like he was trying to escape the bugs. Beca felt a twitch at her lips and she smothered the smirk. He pulled at the tie. "I'll let you off with a warning this time. At least you're finding good company." He submerged his neck into a polite nod before flicking his eyes towards the door in dismissal.

Giddy with a feigning excitement, Chloe beamed as she grabbed Beca's hand again and tugged her along towards the exit. Beca stammered in trail as she looked bewilderedly back at Mr. Goodwin, expectations smithering to a pile of ashes as she doors shut behind her.

"How the hell did you _do_that?" She pulled her hand from Chloe's grasp and rubbed the imprint Chloe left in her wrist.

Chloe mockingly dipped a curtsey before giggling. She shrugged and began to peel off Beca's jacket, which was a size too small for her. She bent over and scooped her own with respective scarf off the floor. "He plays golf with my dad sometimes, and I have an A in science." She brushed it off like it was a simple task. Beca was brimming at a C+ at best, and she was far from stupid.

Beca nodded, taking her jacket in turn as she slipped her lanky arms through the sleeves. Glancing over her shoulder at the hall she was ready to skate down, she kicked the skateboard she'd left by the door up into her hands and awkwardly nodded again at Chloe. "Thanks. But next time, I would just leave it if I were you."

Chloe inclined her neck, a frown dripping from her forehead.

Beca clarified. "I mean - you heard what he said. I'm bad company. You're good. Just.. you don't want a reputation like that screwed up." She forced a small smile, eyes flickering over this plain-Jane girl. She was nothing special, ostensibly. Beca gulped as every imprint of this girl's face bled easily in her memory.

"I-I'll see you around."

And oh, how they definitely would.

Chloe looked up from her exam packet. Her hand was matting through her sweaty hair and she could feel the exasperated pumps of blood her heart pounded through her. She had another smudge of drool on her chin. She knew, but she couldn't bother to wipe it off. The clock was drowning in too much time and her answer sheet had too much space on it. Too much unanswered space. She groaned.

Beca perked at the sound, glancing back at the incoherent mumbling. Everyone else was bent over their desks with scratching pens and pencils. But Chloe was flat on her face, cheek squishing out against her paper. Beca frowned, shooting a look at Mr. Handlet, because the minutes were chewing by and Chloe wasn't lifting her head. Mr. Handlet was thumbing through pages absentmindedly. He wasn't looking.

Beca crumpled one of the note-sheets she'd been given. It was mostly definitions she'd already used that were no longer worthy to her - or they were, but she didn't care. It smothered and condensed in her palms, and with one last shot across the bow at Mr. Handlet, she chucked it at Chloe who was gradually falling asleep.

The girl jerked her knees beneath the desk and against the metal legs, lurching awake. Beca turned back in her seat, away from the redhead, away from the witness.

Chloe apologetically met their teacher's eyes before bending over to pick he crumpled paper up and stuffing it in her bag.

She managed to drag herself through the rest of her history exam, a triumphant lick to her lip when she etched in the last bubble of her test. She managed to turn it in, and she managed to leave the door. Beca was long gone, and they were both transferred into new history classes for the second semester of their sophomore year. But she managed to let the crumpled note sheet drop from her bag at her feet when she rested at her locker before her next exam. She retrieved it, ravelling it open and flattened it against the wall.

And so she also managed to read Beca's name scribbled at the top.

But she didn't really see her again that year. And for right then, _that was okay_.


	2. Junior Year

"You're taking Greek Myths?"

In front of Beca, Chloe hovered with teetering ankles. "I guess so."

"Impressive."

"You're taking it too," Beca pointed out nonchalantly.

"I am. Are you looking forward to it?" Chloe pressed casually, wrist slabbed around the strap of her bag.

"Eh. I dunno. I don't like... myths."

There was a lingering pause. "Me either."

"Yeah."

"I went to Greece once," Chloe added as she sat beside Beca, sliding her binder onto the desk.

"Yeah?"

"I didn't like it."

"Too many grapes for you, huh?"

She laughed. It was a cute little giggle that broke when she ducked her chin and made her red hair dribble down her nose. It was kinda cute. But Beca slumped back in her chair and gave a small smile.

She didn't have braces anymore. She looked older now.

It was the first time they spoke without them.

"There's a party this weekend."

Beca nodded.

"We should go."

Beca shrugged.

Jesse prodded her ribs with his wrist in an awkward twist. She'd scuttled her desk a few inches further behind her and away from him, and he didn't know why. But she was looking at the front of the room, and kept tapping her pencil on her notebook with Mrs. Smist's name scrawled on. Jesse thought that enveloping her little hand in his and dragging her name across her schedule signup would mean more time for them to be together. Greek Myths was a senior English class, but Beca had been offered it as an option. She didn't want to sit through an hour a day with fantasies drawing on the board, but he begged, and Aubrey told her to just do it.

So she did.

Chloe and Beca still only saw each other once a day, but second semester of their sophomore year had revolved only around hall-exchanges. Even then, usually Beca was laced inside Jesse's hoodie, and Chloe had a lot of friends. On a nice, rare day, they'd share an awkward smile. But they didn't greet each other. And Beca didn't learn her name officially until now, in their junior year. Thank God Mrs. Smist was an elderly sexist at heart and didn't like pairing opposite genders together on projects

"I suck with presenting stuff."

Chloe lifted her shoulders and perked her lips widely. "It's okay. I really like public speaking. And I remember your slideshows from last year - they were really good. So it'll even out well enough." She flashed another smile as she leaned cross Beca's desk and began tapping at the touchpad of her laptop. "Do you prefer a certain program? I think Google Docs will be easiest so we can both work on them at home."

Beca didn't shrug. She felt rude when she shrugged. "I'm fine with whatever."

Chloe nodded, eyebrows knitting slightly like puppet strings clashing as she struggled with the computer. "I-I... Can you set it up? I don't really know how to use a PC actually..." she admitted.

Beca chuckled, lightly swatting Chloe's hands away. She had ridiculously soft hands still. Beca felt a tugging memory of holding it once. "You're a Mac kinda chick then, huh?" she inquired with a wiggling, bemused eyebrow.

Chloe returned with a teasing grin. "Is that going to be a problem?"

"I don't know - I might have to ask for a new partner."

"I'm kind of offended."

"That sucks."

Chloe playfully shoved at Beca's shoulder, rolling her eyes with another intoxicatingly sprouting giggle. "You're kinda rude."

"I'm not rude. You're just sensitive."

"I'll deny that."

"Your name's Chloe?"

It came up in a blurt because Beca had clicked open a new presentation document, and turned it back over to Chloe, who began to fill in their names. Chloe lifted her eyes up to Beca's with a hurting shot of pall. "You... don't remember me from last year?"

"What? No - I remember you, obviously, I just - I suck ass with names. I - Sorry."

Chloe blinked a lot, almost as much as she talks, and it was kind of distracting. Beca felt the need to imitate the movement as her frowned became lengthy as well, and watched Chloe slowly recover. With a pang, Beca looked back at the presentation. Chloe had filled in Beca's name as well - first and last - and she felt sort of like she'd betrayed a friend.

But they weren't friends. They had unmemorable connections and ran into each other a lot. Sometimes Chloe saved Beca's ass and grabbed her hand and Beca would tell her not to do it again, but they weren't friends. Sometimes they'd bond over Greek stereotypes or computers, and sometimes they'd work on a project together.

But they weren't friends.

"Here." A pink slip of paper torn off a handout in class was slipped into Chloe's hands, and she blinked a lot again.

"What's this?" But as she thumbed the folded paper open and squinted at the digits, she already knew.

"My number. We should probably meet up sometime this weekend for like, the project." Her voice was a barren dead-pan.

Chloe wrapped the small shard of paper around her thumb, flicking it around as she tapped her foot and looked down on Beca. "Sure. Would you prefer my place, or yours?" For a second, even when her words sprouted a smirk and raised eyebrows on Beca's porcelain skin, she remained stone-faced, but eventually she rolled her eyes and shoved Beca in the shoulder again as the alternate meaning dawned on her. With her palm on the girls bony arm, it felt familiar. Like she did it too many times. "You're a perv."

"You set yourself up, dude."

"No, you set _me_up."

"Is this the part where I deny all charges or something?"

"You're under oath - you can't lie under oath."

"I never swore to anything."

"Yes you did."

"Fine. I'm a perv and you're a liar."

"I deny that too."

"I thought I was the one in denial."

"You are."

Meddling into lunch later that day, Chloe felt Beca's number heavy and hot in her pocket. And she couldn't stop herself from crouching over and typing into her phone beneath the table.

"_**Your place or mine?"**_

"_**right. and im the perv."**_

"_**It's a legitimate question."**_

"_**no its not."**_

"_**Do you want to work on this project or not?"**_

"_**i told you ur sensitive."**_

"_**I'm not sensitive. I'm impatient."**_

"_**i didnt take u as an impatient kinda girl."**_

"_**What kind of girl, then?"**_

There was a long pause, dreadfully long, and Chloe nibbled on her bottom lip, setting her phone beside her lunch tray. She dropped her chin in her hand, smirking across the table at Aubrey who was neck-deep in a story about her spiritual mom who was convinced she'd flooded a restaurant and given a woman pneumonia by praying to her "power animals." While it was undeniably amusing on a few alternating levels, Chloe always became unnaturally absorbed in her words when she began talking to someone she didn't know. Anxiety kicked in and she overthought every single phrase she could spew, from its syntax to the actual meaning behind it.

"_**a mac girl."**_

"_**Shut up. Apple is a nice, efficient company."**_

"_**no."**_

The lack of response triggered a creased brow on Chloe's part, and she began to gnaw over her bottom lip, worried she was bothering the brunette.

"_**Whatever. Where?"**_

"_**where what?"**_

"_**Where do you want to work."**_

"_**shouldnt that have a question mark?"**_

"_**Don't be a smart-ass."**_

"_**yikes. ok um, can we work at yours?"**_

"_**Fine with me."**_

Then came the dreadful fretting that she was being rude and blunt, too distancing. So she hastily sent out another text.

"_**Come by tomorrow at noon. I'll text you my address."**_

"_**noon? no way. its a saturday."**_

"_**You're frustrating."**_

"_**you love it."**_

"_**I have somewhere to be around four, so if you want to get anything done - noon."**_

"_**what is it, a date? can i use it as spoilers for ur fanbase?"**_

"_**Um... no? Is this a trick question?"**_

"Chloe."

"_**ur funny. alright, fine, i'll swing by at noon."**_

"Chloe!"

Chloe jerked her head up from the screen of her phone, catching her hair in her salad. "What?"

Aubrey flicked her wrist and shook her head. "Never mind."

A scattered moan slithered out between Chloe's puffed out lips, her jaw hanging loosely against the gentle sheets. The moisture of her own drool didn't dawn on her exactly, and her body stirred inside the cocoon of blankets enveloping her. A hand peaked out from beneath the covers and tugged at the blanket fluttered over her shoulder, pulling it over her eyes to block out the creeping sunlight drizzling through the windows. It made her wish she'd remembered prior to her slumber to yank the blinds shut before crawling into her bed. A vague memory reminded her she'd turned in early in the night to make sure she remembered to get up early for... something. She shook her head and buried her face deeper into the pillow, throwing her arms beneath it to draw it in closer.

The swelling darkness and odd imaginations began to blur the edges of her brain again as sleep was slowly brought down upon her again when another ragged noise shifted her mental state again. It was familiar, and another moan fell out from between her teeth, because it was exactly what prevented her from living in a longer sleep. But then vocal honey was soothing her ears through wood in the distance, and Chloe groggily blinked her eyes open, knitted eyebrows drowning her features as she slumped up in her bed, propped up on elbow. She lazily dragged her wrist over her eyes, rubbing the grainy exhaustion from them as a subdued silence stirred before someone knocked again.

And then it clicked.

Chloe's eyelids fluttered like beating wings as she lurched from under the covers, tossing them over her side. The world around her wavered like a snowglobe crashing, and she fought her eyes open as she stumbled out her bedroom and down the winding stairs. She slipped more than once, landing flat on her ass painfully, before staggering down the hall and sliding on the slicked floor. She crumbled in front of the door, tugging it open.

Beca was standing out there with a bag in her hand and a phone held to her ear. Upon seeing Chloe, she raised an eyebrow, dropping the phone to her side after pressing a button. Her eyes washed over Chloe's red lazy eyes and crazy hair that resembled yearbook photos from elementary school.

"I told you noon is too early."

Chloe blinked long and hard. She didn't blink this much in school, like when a teacher asked her a question she didn't know. She always had words. Words were always stuck in her head, and unanswerable questions were just excuses to use more. But standing there, in boxers and a 76ers shirt, she didn't have any.

But she did have some drool still on her chin.

"You uh, got some stuff there..." Beca pointed to her chin, jutting her own out in emphasis.

Chloe slapped a hand to her face, scrabbling along the skin before spinning around and wiping it away. Beca slipped in between Chloe and the doorway, gently pushing Chloe away as to shut the door. Chloe stumbled again, rubbing her chin on her shirt for good measure as she dumbfoundedly watched Beca cleanly clear the area.

Beca snickered as she leaned her skateboard against the wall beside the door and pressed passed Chloe. Her combat boots were clean and quiet as she stepped around the hall, peaking into rooms and lifting her chin to the air. "Nice place," she observed thoughtfully.

Chloe curiously kept an eye on the shorter girl, fiddling nervously with the hem of her shirt. "Thank you." She crossed her arms a bit uncertainly, before dropping them to her sides. She scratched the back of her head.

"You alright?" She'd paused from her snooping, turning her scope back to the redhead.

Chloe blinked again.

"I need to.. change. Make yourself at home. My parents are at work right now, so we're alone. The kitchen is right over there," she leaned against the arch way and pointed around it, before swinging right back round and stumbling slightly into Beca "-shit" She let go of the rail, faltering against herself. Beca, eyes wide and baffled, scrabbled out and grabbed Chloe's wrists, steadying her.

Chloe spit out repetitive apologies, moving back. "I-I-Sorry, I'm sorry." She pressed a palm to her forehead, rubbing knots from her temples before she shook her hair out. "You're right. I just woke up, I'm - I'm out of it. Give me a minute, and I'll be back down soon."

God, it was huge.

The house.

Beca ran her finger across the shelf hovering above the empty fireplace. It had no accumulated dust, no cobwebs. Peachy picture frames that Beca happily inspected. But they _were_the expected; award ceremonies, weddings, dances, birthday parties. Beca fingered her thumb over the corner of a frame of Chloe in a bathtub - it was obvious by her wild red hair that the little girl was her. A soft smile tickled her lip.

But it was huge. Beca was sure of it, because Jesse's ego would definitely be able to cram itself inside the living room alone. Usually he needed an entire school filled with clean hallways and white classrooms to manage himself.

Jesse was an ass.

He picked a fight about their stupid fucking job at the music store.

He thought she was into Luke. Her fucking _boss_.

The worst decision she ever made was agreeing to both apply to all the same places.

Beca glided onto one of the bar stools after letting the picture frame rest inside its rightful bubble above the fireplace.

By the time Chloe drummed down the steps and resumed her presence in the kitchen, Beca was tapping at her laptop and she had her books all sprawled out.

"Hey, I'm really sorry about... you know." Chloe had retrieved a bottled water from the fridge - two, really, but she already slid it across the counter towards Beca - and she now used it as a method of keeping her fingers occupied.

Beca shrugged and didn't lift her eyes, setting her bottle aside. "It's cool."

Chloe didn't appear to think so, because she leaned forward on the bar, dipping forward and continued. "I should have set my alarm or something - really, I went to bed early, to make sure everything would be set in order, I just - overslept."

Beca slowly tipped her laptop screen down, and regarded Chloe over its brim with an amused crease above her eyebrows. "You crashed early for... this?" She stirred her hands out to the sprawled books.

Chloe blinked.

"Are you hungry?"

Beca peeled her cheek off her face, dazedly blinking at the ginger beside her. "Huh?"

"Do you want something to eat?"

Beca stared at Chloe.

Chloe stared back.

It was the first time Beca had ever been in Chloe's house. It was the first time they ever seen one another outside of the creaking high school walls scraping guts off the inside of their skulls. It was the first time.

"Oh." Beca shook her head, squeezing the bridge of her nose. A bubbling clearing of her throat later, and she shook it again. "Sorry. I uh, brought some bagels with me. Um, there's a couple extra... if you want some." She lightly padded at the laptop, sliding it away so she could pull her bag towards them. Lifting the flap, she shuffled through what clearly was an absurd and catastrophic mess, and pulled out a white paper bag in minimal time.

She passed it over to Chloe, brushing her thumb against her knuckle, before reaching across the other girl for her auspicious laptop. She slumped back in her chair, chewing distractedly on her lip.

"Beca?"

"Hm?"

"There's like a dozen bagels in here."

"No there isn't."

"Um." Chloe hesitated, because there clearly was.

"I wasn't sure what kind you liked, okay?"

"You could have called." Not that she had to get her Greek Myths partner food at all.

"You were sleeping."

"You weren't aware of that an hour ago."

"Just eat a fucking bagel."

"I don't know which one to choose. There's so many."

"And you say I'm the frustrating one."

Chloe sucked in her bottom lip, dampening a smile threatening to lick out across her cheeks as she let a silence swell over them. Beca was pouring over her laptop, dragging items across different slides on their show, occasionally messing with color schemes, hues, contrasts and such. In a quiet voice quivering on the edge of mockery, Chloe asked "Do you want one?"

Beca slammed her laptop shut, burying her face in her skinny fingers as she shook her head. Normally, Chloe's face would be a screaming blood-red and she'd feel like the most aggravating nuisance to exist, but laughs were dripping through Beca's hands and her shoulders shook with the snickering.

Eventually, Beca dragged her eyes into a view within Chloe's sigh, and she raised her eyebrows. Chloe was sure she was going to eject another sarcastic quip, but her chortling grin only stretched. "Sure, Chloe." The way she put emphasis on her name and sung her tongue through every letter of it might as well have made up for her lack of knowledge of the label at all a week ago, even if it sounded like she was speaking to a little kid. "I'll have a damn bagel."

"Chloe?"

Has she mentioned how much she loves soft pillows? Or anything that's soft for that matter? It's like... diving into something... soft.

"Chloe."

God, this pillow was intoxicating. And warm. It was so warm.

"Chloe wake up."

Chloe winded her arm around it. Round pillows are nice.

"Jesus Christ..."

Round?

Sweet hands were shoving at Chloe and unhooking her arms from around Beca's thigh, grappling at her wrists. "Dude, get _off_."

Chloe jerked off from Chloe's lap, careening against the backwards cushions. Before Chloe could even muster comprehensible vision, she rolled off the couch ungainly and smacked her knees against the floor. It would have been fine, maybe a sore leg for a couple days and some awkward travel along floors like Mr. Handlet with his awkward hip and billboard-strapped ass. But like the fucking mortifying klutz she was, her forehead indented harshly against the corner of the coffee table and her neck whiplashed back into the couch.

"You're a fucking idiot."

Beca's so nice.

But she really is, because she had nudged the table away and pushed herself off the couch, sitting beside Chloe. She swatted her own hair out of the way as she bent over, slapping at Chloe's hands again. "Stop it. Let me look."

Despite the sharp and nauseating pain wavering her skull and rattling her eyes, she formed a lopsided, lazy smirk. "You don't even know what you're doing."

But apparently she did, or at least was acting the part. She was slapping at Chloe's cheeks like one might to a baby, puffing them out gently. "Okay, just - Chloe, what's your name?" She didn't pay attention the fact she just said it. Minor details.

Chloe frowned up at her like she was the idiot who fell off the couch. "But you said you remembered me."

Beca sighed aggravatedly, clenching her jaw in a way that shot a ripple through the muscles outlining it. "Just - say your name."

Chloe moaned her name out, squirming in Beca's hands.

She kept asking questions. God, someone make her stop. Why was she asking her number? She knew her number. Beca was silly.

"You're silly, Beca."

"The last three digits, Chloe!" Beca was mad. She sounded mad. She was mad.

Chloe pouted up at Beca, stretching her arm out dizzily to touch Beca's face. "Don't be mad, Bec."

"Don't call me Bec. Give me the numbers."

Chloe was pretty sure she was drooling again. Her head didn't really even hurt anymore. "It doesn't hurt."

"_You_hurt _my_head," Beca grumpled, gripping Chloe by her sides and tugging her up to a sitting position. Beca yanked a pillow from beneath her laptop, which actually was threateningly close to toppling onto the floor, but Beca could hardly notice. She slipped the pillow behind Chloe's head as she sloppily laid back against the couch.

Chloe sighed heavily. "4-7-8-1."

Beca sat back far enough to inspect Chloe's eyes. "What?"

"You... You said last three digits."

"That was four."

"Mm... oh."

"I had no idea you were such a paranoid and neurotic person."

"Shut up. Follow my finger with your eyes."

Chloe crossed her arms across her chest, huffing and stared right at Beca's face, ignoring the finger she was sailing back and forth in front of her.

"You're not following it."

"I'm fine."

"Then follow it."

She followed it.

"I'm really sorry."

Chloe sprung from the couch, staring over the edge of it at Beca, who now sat at the dining table with her laptop. "What'd you do? Don't tell me you didn't save. I didn't save my notes anywhere else."

"What? No - about your head."

Chloe shrugged - after much hesitant blinking - and rolled back onto the couch, her arm crooked under her neck. "It's fine. It doesn't hurt anymore."

"It's purple."

"I like a little color."

"Purple and red; Real nice combination."

Chloe threw a pillow at her.

"Okay - which one looks better?"

For the past half an hour, Beca had been doing her best to edit and mess with the information itself on the slides, instead of actually flickering the designs and effects. She was pretty sure that was what mattered on the final grade. And she didn't want to let Chloe down, she was kinda cool and sorta cute; even with a bruise on her forehead coating an ugly bump that Beca was still convinced was her fault.

But Chloe was at the foot of the stairs, peeking into the living room that succumbed to actually be separated from the kitchen. Sweatpants dragged down her hips and she had the 76ers shirt glued to her chest again. In front of her with outstretched arms and a misled pout, she held a sexy black dress with a low dip and a slanted cut, and then balancing against her respective wrist was a pale blue dress with a seafoam tint. It was cute, kinda frilly like something you might wear to a junior high dance. But just holding it made Beca notice this bluish tint Chloe had in her eyes. She never really noticed eye color on girls - or guys for that matter (if asked, she couldn't for the life of her point out which color eyes were Jesse's, even on a multiple choice questionnaire) - but Chloe was suddenly leaping out with these spring-water eyes that might bubble on the surface of a lake in a splintering sun. Maybe it bathed the walls structuring a room for a small child, or a newborn infant, as their parents tried best to mimic the color around you, should you be dancing in the sky.

It was a pretty color.

"Blue one."

"Are you sure? Aubrey said black."

Beca squinted at her screen, dragging a picture from her desktop. "If you asked Aubrey, why are you asking me?"

If Beca were to turn back, slump her elbows on the counter and watch Chloe, she'd see a pretty face fall and an adorable smile falter. Excitement would flicker like a flame splashed with a few drops of water. But Beca had her back turned, and Chloe dropped her head.

"I-" Chloe shut her jaw, teeth clamping together aggressively for a gentle girl. "Aubrey sleeps with guys on the first date," she blurted with these wide innocent eyes like she was pleading not to be charged a fine.

Beca tipped her ear with a smirk, nodding slightly. "Sometimes. What's your point?"

Chloe shifted from foot-to-foot, shuffling the scuffs. "I don't know. I don't want... my dress to say that. You... don't... do that. You... date."

Beca snorted, rattling her skull. She _dated_. Because she and Jesse were a huge _deal_at school. Dream-relationship, star-couple in the yearbook, ideal vision for a perfect pair.

Right. Beca _dated_and she was _good_at relationships.

She was good at pretending.

Beca cradled a heavy sigh in her lips and turned, finally leaning back into her laptop. "The black one is too much. You're gonna be uncomfortable in it all night. I'm sure you'll look awesome, but it's not your style."

If one person could suffer from a traumatic disease or disorder influenced by a surplus of blinking, it would be Chloe. It's like she was trying to keep from falling, and thought they would beat like wings to keep her airbourne.

"So yeah. I say the blue," Beca surmised, sucking in her bottom lip. She didn't like it when Chloe stared at her like that. Not many people really just _stared_. You know, there's the awkward exchange of glances where you both hurriedly duck your eyelashes and pretend you weren't just caught, but no one holds that shit for so long.

Eventually, Chloe nodded, her jittering eyes having resumed their easy wandering. She was really fast with her eyes, like someone that noticed all the details first and caught sight of her best friend the split second she entered the room. She was someone who would see you before you noticed her. And while that's a significant trait one could be envious for, it's also the sentence that left Chloe always the one to initiate contact first.

"Okay."

"I should probably get going." Beca rolled her shoulders, flexing her fingers and straining her neck. She shut her laptop, rubbing her eyes. It was weird that it was only three. It felt more like the shadows should have already snuck up on them from around a corner with a dagger in its clutches before piercing the sky and dragging night across the atmosphere.

"Oh, okay." Chloe nodded jerkily, like her head was stuck on a triggered string that had just been tugged. She was in her blue dress, but a hoodie was clinging to her shoulders as she sat up straight and slid off the bar stool, watching Beca pack her laptop away and clear the mess. She was habitually stacking the plates from their breakfast and wiping down the counter, striking a raised eyebrow on Chloe's skin, but she didn't question it.

"You don't need to do that, I got it," she assured as she swept up behind Beca and fumbled to take the clutter from her hands. Beca chuckled and allowed their arms to entangle as Chloe struggled.

"Sure you do." Beca shouldered her bag, a smirk tickling her lips.

They clattered in the sink and Chloe winced. She spun and looked at Beca like she'd fucked up something serious and important, but Beca was smiling softly. She recoiled her mouth in, trying to pass the suppression off by rolling her eyes, but Chloe could still see it.

"Have fun on your date." Beca winked, trailing backwards towards the door with a slanted smirk as she bowed into the corner to grab her skateboard. Chloe's flickering goodbye-wave was fluctuated and swayed into a pause at the seemingly flirtatious gesture and, well, she blinked.

"You didn't go the party."

It wasn't a question, an accusation, or even a plaintive remark. Just a simple, bland observation that rung emptily in Beca's ears.

"I didn't," she agreed.

"You said you would."

"No I didn't."

"You did."

"Okay."

Chloe sat down just then, and Beca was able to crook her desk slightly towards her so she could cut whatever Jesse's next words were going to be. Beca forced a tight-lipped smile that hugged all her teeth and looked too winded to pass as something at least aloof, if not melancholy.

But Chloe brushed it off and mirrored the same awkward cast as Jesse made a weak attempt to capture Beca's hand. Chloe wasn't really sure about the ragged tempo the air had succumbed to, and why it was so, but she tried to slug herself through it nonetheless. She didn't really have a firm grasp on what kind of person Beca recognized herself as, nor did she know much about her relationship with Jesse aside from the ostensible picture they painted. And that frame held something happy that most teenage girls strived for.

Chloe eyed the dead hand limp in Jesse's fingers, observing the squeeze he gave with no response. When she finally blinked her eyelashes back up at Beca, the girl was staring right back at her with - was that a plea for help? She looked so empty, so much like she was drowning in nothing and scrabbling at the insides of her skull with bloody screams.

Chloe blinked.

Sometimes nothing's wrong. At all. If any labels were being delivered, it could be perfect. Situations could meld like an aced exam and all the right words might flow. Sometimes it might be right.

But it can definitely be so wrong.

Chloe kicked Beca underneath a desk once Mrs. Smist turned to face the board. Her ankles washed out from under her in reflex and her chin slapped against the desk, but just as quickly she erected herself with wide, tired eyes that burned into Chloe. It was really cute, Chloe decided. She'd only been sleeping for maybe five minutes, but from the mess of her hair and the wild animal-caught-in-headlights look flaring her big eyes, she might as well have slept an entire rocky night.

Beca's bleary eyes set into some monotone transition and she rubbed them after a glance to the clock. She mumbled a thanks a moment later. Mrs. Smist had begun to trail through the aisles as she handed sheets out, giving Beca a stern look. Beca smirked up at her, the thin smile thickening when she transferred the look to Chloe, who grinned shyly into her own hand.

"_**what are u doing tonight?"**_

It wasn't a _text_in general that surprised Chloe on Friday afternoon. It wasn't the awkward timing because she was leaning against a wall somewhat seductively as she spoke in a soft voice to the same boy she went on a date with last week. It wasn't any of that. It was the fact Beca had texted _her;_she'd initiated something she wasn't sure existed. Everyone knew Beca was aloof and laid back - she may only be a junior, but ever since she started dating the upperclassman, people approached _her_for social interactions. Beca let people come to _her_. It wasn't a self-absorbed kind of mantra she kept in her pocket, it was just how it was. If she ever happened to want a communal synergy of some sort, the other party would beat her to it, and she would barely have to wait. Chloe might overread things, she might pay too much attention to details for the sake of simply being observing, and she might get ahead of herself most of the time.

But it was the first time Beca texted Chloe just to _text_her.

Not to mention Beca had dozens of little patriots ready by the phone to keep her entertainment level in check.

So Chloe put a hold on her conversation with Tom, holding one skinny little finger up with an apologetic smile.

"_**Nothing I was looking forward to. Why?"**_

She didn't really have an explanation why she said that, because she had been in the middle of contemplating Tom's proposition of them going to the movies that night. Last week, she'd met his parents as a first date - which in itself was definitely weird - but he was cute and had really nice hair. But he was persisting.

"_**dunno. u wanna do something?"**_

"_**If you want."**_

"_**why would i ask if i didnt want to?"**_

At some point, Chloe excused herself from Tom, throwing a raincheck at his offer like a blow from a shotgun squared at his head.

"_**Did you have something in mind?"**_

"_**not really."**_

"_**Okay."**_

"_**can i come over?"**_

It took Chloe a minute to adjust to the question. It was common sense that inviting yourself somewhere was rude, or simply asking to be invited was frowned upon. But.. there was something desperate about this inquiry; like she needed it. Like an alcoholic needed their drink, or a smoker craved a cigarette, Beca was acutely wretched for an escape.

But she didn't know what to say.

"_**...If you want."**_Realizing this might come off as irritated or like she didn't want to blurt yes, she added a **"**_**;)"**_a moment later.

"_**still unsure how im the frustrating one."**_

It was a few magnitudes chillier down in the shaved scoop of the landscape that created the small valley Chloe's house was harbored in, Beca noted as she scuffed her hat tighter over her ears. Standing on Chloe's porch with her white-cold knuckles tucked into sagging pockets, she felt stupid. So stupid. What the fuck was she doing?

She'd cancelled on Jesse, claiming still that a new Greek Myths project was nailing her to the ceiling, keeping her cooped in. In the rare case he actually happened to drive through Chloe's neighborhood and pass by her skating figure crunching down the sidewalk, she'd briefly mentioned Chloe being her partner - which wasn't necessarily a lie - and that they were conferring at the redhead's house. Which they were - just not about a project. Beca didn't even know what for, she just knew Chloe was a player of the game on a different board, and Beca was sick of her own. She needed a retreat to a resort, and with someone who might provide that kind of comfort.

Chloe just seemed like that kind of refuge.

She ticked the door open the door a minute following Beca's solid, yet gentle, knocks. She had another sports shirt on, this time a Patriots gown, with her burning hair twirled into a messy bun, tendrils caking the frame of her face. She looked... soft. Easy and loose. It was a good look on her.

It wasn't that during school she seemed guarded and weary; she just looked as if at any moment, someone was going to tuck a quiz in her face with a clock ticking down a timebomb.

"Hi," Beca blurted with an uneasily harsh puff of air.

Chloe grinned widely, kicking the door in a wider arc. "Hey." She stepped aside, and Beca had the inkling fear that emerging inside would be more of a death sentence than a commencement to a sanctuary.

But she did anyway.

"Chloe?" A female voice rung out through the house, mature and sweet like a Chai latte milking her ears. "Who is it?"

"You didn't tell them I was coming?" Beca hissed through teeth as she scrambled her hair behind her ear.

She'd hacked her hat off her head, stuffing it haphazardly into her bag before dropping it to the floor by her skateboard. Beca didn't really notice, and Chloe hadn't thought much of the fact she'd kicked a few shoes into the closet to clear a space for said skateboard. She remembered how cluttered the entrance had looked, how sloppily lopsided the board had been and - it just bothered her. So now there was a cleared, reserved space for Beca's skateboard.

Chloe shrugged a reassuring smile, comfort enthralled with encouragement in one wide beam, as she took Beca's hand lightly and tugged her towards the living room. Beca resisted, but only mildly as the ginger's slender fingers coolly gripped her own. It was kind of neat, in the way that Chloe's determined wide eyes were innocently and directly proportional to the way the house was a refuge. Or proving to be one, so far.

If Beca had gone into a more poignant swirl of thoughts on Chloe's family, she might assume her mom to have this piercing red mane of hair like a sunset leaping from her roots, and her father to have a dirty-brownish, sandy color - you know, one that when mixed with red might give off this ginger hue Chloe bore. She was certain they both had to have the same big blue eyes, because eyes like Chloe's could only derive from parents who shared just as strong ones.

But her mother - or who Beca assumed to be - was drawled on the couch, feet on the coffee table with a magazine in her hands. She had a rich cinnamon color ameliorating long wavy hair, aiding the fair skin tone she relaxed in; it was most definitely unlike Chloe's tan, sunny skin, but it wasn't pale and gross. She was pretty. Beca didn't see a fatherly figure anywhere; she even teetered on her toes to peer around into the kitchen, but still no sign of one. Beca relaxed onto her heels and stuffed her hands into her pockets.

"Oh. Hi. Who's this?"

Chloe's mom rose from her seat as Chloe dropped Beca's hand, the daughter shooting her this _look_- like she was seeking approval, or an assurance that this was okay. Beca's lips parted slightly and, remembering the way Chloe had responded to her questions, she shrugged with a small smile. Chloe easily returned it.

"This is-"

"Beca. Hi. I'm.. Beca." Beca leaped forward, cutting Chloe off as she stepped closer to the mother. She held her hand out. It might have been clammy from her pockets, or perhaps they were still icebergs harboring at the ends of her limbs. She wasn't really sure.

Chloe's mom pursed her lips into an admirable smile, like a more matured version of Chloe's cheeky grin. She cocked her chin in a professional version of a curtsey as she took Beca's hand. "Hi Beca. You can call me Sarah."

An easy silence followed once Beca let her arm settle by her side, but she still looked to Chloe for words. Her mom, however, beat her to it.

"So, are you a... friend? Lab partner?"

Again, Beca shot Chloe a look, but it seemed as if Chloe was returning the same skeptical gaze. Neither of them really knew _which_label covered it better. Sure, they were project partners once and they worked well together - but they both knew Beca wasn't there to work.

"I'm, uh, in Chloe's English class. Greek Myths." Beca gave a jerky, self-approving nod.

"Uh-huh." Sarah nodded, tucking her fingers into the back pockets of loose jeans that didn't seem to fit her. "Chloe's never mentioned you."

Okay, it didn't come out rude. At all. More teasing towards her daughter, like a playful jab, but somewhere lurking in Beca's corner it was more than a poke, it was like a heavy prod to the ribs.

Beca could almost feel the unspoken message dangling off the end of Sarah's sentence and the boundary between it. The boundary separating playful banter and vague prods to harassing bickers and slashing cuts.

_And Chloe mentions everyone._

Beca gulped.

"No, Beca's the one that came over a while ago, to work on the project. I asked you if it was okay, remember?"

Why did Chloe sound so desperate?

It made Beca feel sick.

Her mom said she remembered, but Beca knew she didn't.

She didn't.

And Beca felt sick.

"Sorry about that." Chloe shut the door behind her. Beca trailed around in circles inside Chloe's room, a finger hovering over a picture frame occasionally like she might thumb over its corner, before she retracted as her mind shifted. She shrugged as she met Chloe's eyes unsteadily. She felt bad for feeling sick, because Chloe looked so sincere.

"It's cool. She seems nice."

"I guarantee she is. Usually. She's just not a people-person. She's cooped in a room all day and her only interactions with people aren't even real. She doesn't know how to talk to people sometimes."

Beca hadn't taken her as the awkward, socially-anxious type. "What does she like, do?"

"She's a writer. Fiction stuff."

"Oh. Cool."

"She, um..." Chloe began choppily, clumping down onto her creamy bed. The sheets looked soft. Maybe sweeter than her hands. Beca wasn't so sure, but she wanted to test it, so she laid down behind Chloe on it, arm slabbed under her neck. Chloe angled her figure slightly so she could continue. "She always tells me - like - that a lot of writers like to write in cafes, or libraries. Outside. Busy places, you know? But she needs this total silence around her and to just be completely isolated for a while. She wants her _own_ideas, not just something she saw on the street. She says... she says originality and creativity comes from isolation... but that doesn't always mean its better than a... not-so original or creative plot. Sometimes stolen goods are better than the real thing, and I don't really know why."

Beca wasn't really sure why Chloe was telling her this, but it made her look at Chloe differently. She had all these words bouncing in her head - a lot of which she _definitely_had no problem expressing - but sometimes she had these really cool things and observations in there, tucked away. Maybe they were someone else's - like this one - or maybe they were her own. But it made Beca wonder how much exactly Chloe never said.

"I get that." It was all she gave in return, and she kind of felt like a dick for that, so she stumbled for more. "Um, like... it makes sense. It's... cool." But then she just felt like an idiot.

Chloe shrugged. Beca was pretty sure she blinked too, but she wasn't sure. But she also didn't need to be because, well, it was Chloe.

"Beca?"

"Hm."

She hadn't moved. But Chloe had laid down with her head patted against the opposite end of the bed, fingers intertwined with her own across her abdomen. Now, she sat up on elbows and a dizzy look.

"Why did you come here tonight?"

Although she had no intention of falling asleep, nor did she think she'd actually be able to, her eyes were closed before. Except Chloe's question sparked an eyelid open. Beca shrugged and let it flood back down. But Chloe nudged her knee with her own, patting her somewhat harder than necessary. "Come on, seriously."

Beca wished she didn't feel so defensive all the time, and she wish she could have clamped on the lash peaking on her tongue. But she couldn't. "Look, if you didn't want me to come over, all you had to do was say no. It's fine."

It wasn't.

She was already climbing off the bed, sitting up, but Chloe reached out and grabbed her wrist. Beca's eyes were dark, round spheres with hard cases, but Chloe was smirking, a roll of her eyes generating. "Sit back down. I didn't mean it like that. I just... have curiosity."

"That's why your cat's dead," Beca joked weakly.

"My cat is still alive."

"You should watch out for it then."

"Shut up and answer my question."

"You're demanding." But Beca slipped her forearm from Chloe's keeping and leaned back against the headboard of the bed. She nailed and laced her fingers together, watching down on them as she offered another decrepit shrug. But Chloe felt so much like that fifth shot of tequila, when the buzz is churning your stomach and you can feel the glow spilling like the night across the sky inside your body. Chloe felt... warm against Beca's ankle where she sat on the bed. "I dunno. I thought we were friends."

Chloe's response to that was quicker to escape her lips and more forceful than it should have been for such a soft-spoken conversation. "We are friends."

"Okay."

"I'm serious."

"Dude. Relax. I didn't say you weren't."

"You sound skeptical."

"I'm not in a bad mood?"

"Skeptical means questioning. It's different from cynical."

"It's decided."

"What is?"

"You're definitely the frustrating one."

Chloe kicked Beca's knee again with a disbelieving but amused grin, shaking her head. She was giggling under her breath, and it contagiously swiped across Beca's throat as a small chuckle bubbled under her tongue.

"You still didn't answer my question."

It was getting dark. Beca wasn't really sure what time her parents would want her home by, and whether or not they believed her when she assured she was just seeing a friend that was very much a girl, and not Jesse or some other boy (they always did think the worst of her intentions). Even if they did, she didn't have much confidence they'd have a keen eye on the clock, watching the sluggish numbers tick as they waited for her to come home.

She knew they wouldn't wait up.

"I kind of did," she argued, lazily lolling her head around to look at Chloe.

Chloe huffed, crossing her arms. And Beca really began to feel like a dick.

So her shrug was less open-ended and more a transition into her explanation. "I don't know. I just - you're different. It kind of feels like everyone else wants something from me. I just wanted to chill with someone like that for once." Another shrug, and a careless smile. "Plus you're kinda cool."

Chloe scoffed mockingly, slapping her hand to her chest. "_Me?_Did Beca Mitchell just call_me_cool?" She gave a dramatic, fainting sigh, swiping her palm across her forehead. "I don't know if I can handle this kind of compliment."

"Shut the fuck up." But Beca was grinning so damn hard. And she felt like she was on to her sixth shot of tequila.

"Do you want to watch a movie?" Chloe asked, already somersaulting off the bed. She fell to a neat little pile in front of her TV, shuffling through DVDs. She didn't have many, but for some reason the variety of it was enough,

"Nah."

Chloe shot her a look at the abrupt response, eyebrow swimming high in her forehead. it wasn't the answer itself that bothered her, or seemed odd, it was just how quick Beca was to shoot it down without offering another idea of her own.

Mildly vexed, Chloe pressed her lips together tightly and sat up. "Oka-ay." She dragged it out too far and Beca groaned inwardly. She was always a fucking douchebag to Chloe and she hated it.

"I just-" Chloe's ears flamed up as Beca started to speak. "I don't like movies."

It didn't really click for Chloe. "I don't like them all either. A lot are pretty cheesy, but some are really good. I promise I'll pick a good one."

"No, I mean-" Beca scratched her head. She never had many chances to _explain_this to people. Nor had she wanted to, but normally she endured through films, nodding appreciatively afterward when Jesse asked what she thought. She pretended too much and didn't know what she really liked anymore sometimes. But movies, she definitely had a thing against, unless it had a cast so etched into recognition with well-known actors that she already knew every one of them. Like _Valentine's Day._Even still, it was a stretch. "They're really predictable."

Chloe knew there was more, so she said nothing, blanketing an encouraging silence around Beca.

She clawed at her skull again, more irritably at herself at being unable to find the correct terms in aiding her situation. "I just, I can't-" She clenched her small little knuckles into white fists. "I have trouble following along. I get... I get everyone mixed up."

Chloe was beginning to comprehend that Beca's dislike for films was a more general opinion, as in _none_really did it for her. But the whole point in the movie industry was to make sure it was realistic enough for an audience to follow along. So her eyebrows furrowed into nests in the center of her face.

Beca felt so exposed. Like she was naked in a shower that Chloe had sprung up on her in. Her hands were shaking, and she had to sit on them to calm down, scrabbling for smooth breaths of air. Chloe's silence was bothersome, and she needed to hear her say something, she needed the voice she could get lost in because right now she was blind in her own thoughts.

And then Chloe took her hand. It was so remarkably unforeseen, so surprising, that her neck whipped and she crossed her gaze onto Chloe's, fixated. Chloe was still on the floor, and her chin was dipped into the hollow of her elbow as she looked up at Beca, but her other arm was dragged out across the mattress and she just _took_Beca's hand, like it was rightfully hers. Or like Chloe's was rightfully Beca's. She had this small, supportive smile with easy eyes diminishing the room's colors. No brilliant color in the room could quite compare to the waters breathing passionately in Chloe's eyes; everything looked so dull in comparison. Again, she was stuck back in her old dilemma on whether or not Chloe's hands or these sheets were softer. Sitting on the blankets, with those fingers holding hers reassuringly, she didn't understand why it was ever a problematic decision in the first place. Chloe's skin won by a landslide, and never before under such awkward circumstances had Beca felt so comfortable.

"I... I have prosopagnosia." The admittance was chunky and cumbersome in the air. It weighed the entire room down like the sky itself had hit its peak and clambered on the roof. Beca could feel it - heavier than ever on her shoulders and sinking venomous teeth into her flesh.

Until Chloe squeezed her hand.

So gentle, so affirming, she still couldn't quite believe the softness it possessed.

She knew Chloe didn't have the slightest clue as to what the word even meant. When she was eleven, she hadn't had the slightest clue herself when her parents had to explain and rephrase what the doctors told her.

"I- Faces. I can't... recognize them. It like... it takes a long time... for me to... um... do... that." Another squeeze. God, her eyes were so warm on Beca's skin. "It's this thing in my brain. I was born with it. It's on uh, the like lower side of it. That's where the brain stores memories of faces, I guess. And mine's kinda screwed up. People learn to build their memory over time, you know, like learning what's a couch and the difference between a cat and a dog. I can do that. But people also learn how to tell people apart. I _can't_do that. It takes me more than twice as long to just recognize someone. I can't follow along with movies because by the time its over, I'm just getting the hang of who's who. And no one really likes to stick around to watch it a few times over just so I can get it, and people get sick of me asking over and over 'Wait, who's that?' It just.. doesn't work." By people, obviously, she meant her parents. But Chloe didn't need to know that.

"Teachers and sometimes my parents... they just thought I was stupid or trying to be funny when I'd show up to school on the second week and not know who my teacher was, or the people I sat next to. Until my dad took me to see my mom at work - she worked at a salon with a lot of other women with the same crazy hair and the same overdone makeup - and I couldn't find her. She just... blended in. She didn't even look familiar."

Finally, _finally_, Chloe had something to say. And it was so innocent, so reasonable, that Beca had to smile. "Is... that why you didn't know my name? At the beginning of the year - you said you didn't know it until I told you."

Beca shrugged, still liking the feeling of her hand surrounded by Chloe's. "Kind of. I really did know who you were, actually, just... sometimes names get mixed up. I knew you and I recognized you but... I always thought your name was Charlotte or something."

Chloe pouted, frowning again. "I don't look like a Charlotte." Thank God she didn't seem to try and read into the fact Beca could recognize her. Beca didn't want to investigate it.

Beca laughed, rolling her eyes as the density in the air finally seemed to wear off a bit, and she could feel her shoulders again. "Redheads are usually named Charlotte."

"Well, I'm not." The corners of her mouth were twitching, and Beca could tell she was trying to be serious. But Chloe could never keep a straight face, and so she playfully slapped at Chloe's cheek. They still held each other's hands, and Chloe clutched at it tighter like an anchor as she swayed backwards to avoid Beca's jab.

It made her smile just all that bigger.

And the best part? Chloe didn't blink - not once - during all that.

Beca didn't know when Chloe's dad showed up, but she met him when Chloe's mom called them down for dinner. It kind of caught her off guard - dinner - because it wasn't a routine she was habituated to. Chloe only looked like she'd forgotten in the midst of all these confessions and a twisted time continuum. Not like she was surprised. Not like it was just a show her mom was putting on. Not like her parents were like Becas'.

Chloe grabbed her hand again and pulled her out the room.

"So, Beca, you go to Barden too?"

Why did it feel like an interview?

It felt like when she met Jesse's mom.

Except when dads ask questions, it's so worse.

It felt weird.

He didn't have the light hair Beca had imagined, instead this dark lining between black and a heavy brown. It had a modern styling to it, like something she saw on boys at school, or what she could see Jesse sporting. He was clean-shaven, a little on the scrawny side for an adult, and he shared the same brown eyes with his wife. It didn't make much sense, with Chloe's beauti- _cool_eyes, but Beca didn't think about it _that_much.

Beca nodded, wiping her mouth with a napkin and swallowing the food so she could speak. She wasn't done chewing, but she didn't want to come off as rude. An uncomfortable stomach could live with itself. "Yeah, I take Greek Myths with Chloe."

"Oh, Chloe says that's an interesting class. She absolutely loves it. What do you think?"

Beca couldn't help but snort, and Chloe buried her face in her hands. A common conversation they'd have in class is how they both hated it and were bored out of their minds, drilling the walls. Chloe's parents shared a confused look, while Chloe glared at Beca through her hands, who was trying to hold in her laughter.

"Sorry- I'm sorry, I, uh, yeah. It's definitely interesting."

Sarah was smiling softly, and from the movement of her shoulders, Beca could tell she was nudging her husband's leg beneath the table. Especially since he met her gaze a moment later, and his eyes softened. There was something adoring between them; kind of like the way Chloe's mom had looked at Beca when she took the initiative of introducing herself, but more in the connection between them. It was sweet, and happy, and Beca liked it. Definitely. Something she could _really_enjoy getting used to, or at least a nice aura to grow up with. A nice model of what marriage could be like one day, instead of hissed arguments behind closed doors and a father tossed onto the sofa at night.

The only reason Beca could tell it was Sarah was because she hadn't changed her clothes, and her hair still dripped down her shoulders. Unless it was a dumb joke Chloe was trying to pull and she had someone else come in with the same style. But it wasn't.

"So, uh, Chloe told me you guys are writers?" Beca offered, setting her fork down beside her plate. She could feel Chloe's narrowed eyes staring at her, but she regarded her parents solely.

Sarah's lips formed this shrug, again spraying the appreciative smile. "Chloe would be right."

"What do you write about?" Beca was truly interested. Her dad had tested the waters of literature and actually tried to write instead, and convinced Beca and her mom for years that he would get a book published. But Beca was pretty sure somewhere on his laptop, the file was still saved and hadn't been last updated since millenniums ago. He still taught college courses about someone else's work.

A bouncing conversation bubbled, and Beca found her laughing more than not. Chloe's dad, Paul, had thrown her off with his similar haircut to Jesse, crinkling her into thinking their personalities might be similar, but once she proved herself to not be all bad and the awful influence most adults thought her to be, he loosened up and cracked pretty funny jokes. He was laid back and cool, kind of like Chloe when she was at home and relaxed, and Beca found him really likeable. Sarah was a bit more quiet, but when she did have something to say, no matter how little, she really boosted that saying "Less is more."

When Beca looked at Chloe at one point after finishing a playful debate with Paul on basketball, the girl was looking right back at her with this funny glint. Before the redhead could hastily drop her gaze after being caught staring somewhat adoringly, Beca smiled in this approving kind of way, like she was accepting something. Like she was ready, and okay, to settle down. To relax. And that assent only enhanced when Chloe smiled back.

"Go ahead."

"What?"

"You have that look."

"What look?"

"It's fine. You can ask questions. I don't really care."

"Oh."

Chloe had been gnawing at her lip all night. It was almost ten, and they hadn't spoken much since dinner. They were still holding hands again, still laying on opposite ends of the bed, and Beca never wanted the time to change. It wasn't a romantic kind of thing, it was just so damn peaceful, and she felt... happy. She couldn't really remember the last time she felt like that (except maybe working on the project together might have been silly enough to spark a few genuine smiles to qualify).

"It's none of my business," Chloe stated, seemingly content with the fact.

"Okay." She felt Chloe distractedly play with her fingers. It was weird, and she wasn't sure if Chloe realized she was doing it.

"Is that why you write your teacher's names on all your binders?"

"What?"

"In history. Last year, you wrote Mr. Handlet's name on everything. And you're doing that again this year with Mrs. Smist. Do you do it for every class?"

"Oh." Beca swallowed thickly, beginning to wonder if initiating the consent to ask questions was such a good idea. "Yeah. I didn't- I didn't think anyone noticed."

"Who else knows, then? I mean, I'm guessing you didn't exactly broadcast this."

Beca didn't answer. She didn't even shrug.

"Sorry. I-Sorry. Like I said; none of my business. Sorry." Chloe's hand felt limp in Beca's. It got quiet again, and Beca's attitude was bothering her recurrently. There was something pressuring about Chloe, without her intention (or knowledge) that urged Beca to be nicer. It wasn't that she was generally a rude person, or that Chloe was pressuring her to change direclty - Chloe just made her want to open up.

"No one," she answered shortly. She felt the bed shift as Chloe lifted her head. "No one else knows. My parents taught me it's something to be ashamed of. You get used to pretending you know people when they say hi to you. Or just learn tricks, I guess. Hair color is a factor I can use. Sometimes people have a really unique style, like they always wear really bright colors."

"Why did you tell me then?"

Beca shrugged. But she added "I don't know."

_I really don't know._

"So... do you not recognize anyone at all, then?"

Beca couldn't help but chuckle and smirk. Chloe smacked her thigh and defensively claimed it was a valid question.

"Uh, kind of. I dunno, I kind of recognize individual things. Like structure or colors. Specific traits. Just, as a whole, everything looks the same. It's like... seeing five black cats and trying to remember all their names. Eventually, you learn that some are bigger than others, or one of them has a white spot by their mouth."

Fuck, she was talking a lot. She never talked this much around anyone else. Something she was saying had to sound stupid. It had to. It was inevitable.

"Let me guess, my hair is the big giveaway?" Chloe joked with a sheepish, goofy smile.

Beca shrugged, not in as light of a joking mood as Chloe. "I dunno. You kinda just... pop out as a whole. Not your face but like, everything. I dunno." It sounded really lame, and had a better ring in her head, so she latched her jaw shut and rubbed her forehead.

"Oh. Cool!" She sounded like she actually meant it, and Beca snickered finally.

It was easier than she'd thought it to be - telling someone about her condition. She'd always sworn to herself, a personal oath, that she wouldn't tell anyone. Ever. People lived their entire lives without knowing they had this, so couldn't she go an eternity without anyone else knowing? But Chloe's room was this secluded bubble where the outside rules didn't matter anymore, and they could write their own story. Where things could be different there, but also the same out in the life.

It was an isolation for originality and creativity.

Over a hissing, short time span, Beca and Chloe settled into a tight friendship, closer than Beca or Chloe had ever actually been with Aubrey, or anyone else for that matter. Certainly closer than Beca was with Jesse. That was barely even worth mentioning. Chloe was the first Beca went to when Jesse sent her fleeting to graveyards and the pits of hell, and Beca was the one Chloe confided in about how she only dated Tom because her parents and friends teased her about not having a boyfriend. Ever. Beca would be a ladder into assurance that boys were stupid and she didn't need them to be great, that she easily did it on her own. Chloe would respectively then blush, roll her eyes and make a joke about how Beca was the one in a relationship of over a year. But it would be light. Because she knew it made Beca miserable.

Chloe had a pattern of whenever she moved, and it would move Beca emotionally. At times, they were inseparable best friends. Beca had more inside jokes with Paul, Chloe's dad, than her own, and during the holidays, Beca had dinner at Chloe's on New Year's Eve. She was like a second daughter to Sarah, who attempted to buy Beca a gift, but the short brunette had threatened to leave before accepting any gifts that looked so expensive. Chloe had to drag Beca back inside the house by the collar and smack her over the head before she finally caved and took the necklace. She'd be sure to wear it constantly, especially when she went to Chloe's, even if it wasn't her style. At one point, Chloe said it looked good on her, and after then it never really came off.

There were times Beca might blow Jesse off for Chloe. Sometimes she used the girl as an excuse not to do anything with him, and Chloe would usually be more than happy to comply and actually do whatever Beca claimed they would be busy with. Sometimes Chloe cancelled plans with Tom, or another friend, and not tell Beca because she knew Beca would just hide out at her house and make her go with them instead.

Chloe still hadn't met Beca's parents, nor been in her house. Except one time, after she'd gotten her first car, she went to Beca's home after shooting her a text that she was on her way, and Beca sprinted and tripped out into the rain with her father shrieking after her. She was soaked and dripping onto the new seats, and Chloe didn't have a towel, but she couldn't care enough because all she asked was if Beca wanted to talk about it. When she said no, she drove them to Dunkin' Donuts and bought a half dozen Boston Cream donuts, turned on the radio, and ate. When Beca started crying - it was the first time she ever seen her cry, and it felt like rocksalt was being smothered into her chest - Beca refused to let Chloe hold her. She slapped her hands away and threatened to leave and walk home. So Chloe didn't, but a few minutes later when the sobs were too much, she broke into song with food in her mouth, trying to make the girl laugh; it worked. She spewed donut on the girl's face, that she wiped off with a napkin, still giggling, and wiped away the girl's tears as well. It only made Beca cry harder after she stopped laughing, because she felt even more like a jerk, and she threw her skinny arms around Chloe's neck across the console. It was uncomfortable, but Chloe hugged her right back, pushing Beca further into her seat so Beca could at least not be in the same pain Chloe had been in from the gear shift stabbing into her abdomen.

When the year ended with finals, Beca grinned at Chloe, briefly grabbing her hand and squeezing it before she let it drop. "You ready?" Chloe wasn't sure how they'd used an entire school year on learning Greek Myths, but she nodded and gave an encouraging smile. Beca wouldn't show it in class, but for the past two weeks when they were alone and her walls were capitulated, Chloe listened to Beca stress herself out and yank at her hair over these finals. A flicker washed over Beca's eyes as she acknowledged the smile's underlying meaning.

"We're both ready," Chloe added with a playful yet promising wink.

When Jesse showed up for the exam, a few minutes late, he expected a saved seat with Beca's bag in it, waiting for him. But she didn't even look up as he entered, and the seats strayed around her were taken by classmates he'd once trusted. He favorered a glower for Chloe, who was the only one to recognize his entrance.

Junior year ended, and Beca and Jesse were still together. Beca was still unhappy and she still never wanted to go home, and sometimes she brought Chloe bagels. Sometimes Chloe brought her donuts. But everything about Chloe's life intertwined with her own and laced into a bow created something new. Something likeable. Something _more_than just endurable. Before Chloe, Beca thought she had a considerable handful of friends. But it wasn't until she finally latched with this loud ginger - who had too many words to fit into her mouth - that she realized she'd had near to none worth being with or could make her quite as happy as Chloe Beale could.


	3. Senior Year

"This is bullshit."

They didn't share any classes this semester. Or next.

"I guess."

"You guess? It's stupid."

"It's not the end of the world." A cute smirk.

"Shut up. I'll... request to change classes. I can move up to calculus. Yeah. Fuck Advanced."

"I don't think that'll go over very well with Ms. Burganov."

"Shut up."

Chloe smirked, playfully shoving at Beca's shoulder and allowing the brushing of their skins to linger in contact momentarily. Their shared touch was glued in time, and Beca's scowl demurred and was held for a split, hasty second before it faded and she broke into a sheepish smile.

Maybe if Chloe looked further, she might find a blush scurrying in her cheeks and she could prod a thumb in Beca's hip teasingly. But she let Beca duck her chin and have a shawl of her hair curtain her expression.

Maybe she should have said something.

Chloe opted to arching her back like a cat, stretching her arms out across the lunch table and a groan fluttered out between her lips. Beca snickered and Chloe slapped her. They shared another twinkling smile that injected euphoria into their bubbling veins.

There it was. Another chance to say something.

But she didn't.

A few new friends Beca had supposedly made in the few weeks since she'd started school surrounded the lunch table the pair idled at with innocently sparked grins. They took the spare seats, slipping and chattering, and Beca felt a disquieting nerve at the situation of trying to find some recognizable feature in this handful of unfamiliar members.

Chloe, hesitating bleakly at Beca's hinting expression, slid less than noticeably closer to Beca. Their legs grazed and the warmth seeping through the thin fabric melted Beca's eyes to Chloe's, thawing the frozen layer inside her chest. Because Chloe just _got_ it and she _knew_ how Beca felt and she _cared_ about her.

(She didn't say anything, either)

Chloe was handing out these encouraging, motivational smiles to Beca day in and day out like she had a life supply tucked into the seams of her pockets. Beca didn't know where she found them, and she didn't really know why they made her blush sometimes either.

But she didn't say anything about that either.

Neither of them did.

* * *

She was giggling. She was giggling like a little _girl_. Chloe Beale was making Beca giggle because she'd idled the engine of her car outside Beca's house and decided to skip cheerily out into the fucking _rain_ and _dance_ in it. And Beca was _giggling_ from the passenger's seat, fingers fluttered over her own smile (that she hated) as she regarded the redhead overflow with vitality and grin foolishly while the cold sopping rain massaged over her.

"You're _nuts_!" Beca shrieked out the crack in her window, although rain was already sputtering in.

Chloe zipped her face into Beca's window. Chloe, beaming from ear to ear and eyes that glowed like the rain matting her flaming hair, lurched the passenger door open and grasped at Beca's hands.

"No!" she screeched with the biggest smile.

Chloe, persistent, tugged harder. It didn't matter. Beca's jeans were already drenched.

"Chlo, let go." Beca threatened, and made an attempt to kick the redhead.

"Come _out_ and _dance_ with me!" she pleaded, chin tilted and slippery hands laced around Beca's. "You're gonna have to get wet anyway!"

With an incoherent whine whimpering from her lips, Beca caved.

And yeah, Chloe got her to dance in the rain, but her grumpy endeavor, they both knew, was just an act and she wanted to smile as big as Chloe.

* * *

Still snickering, the girls stumbled inside Beca's house, their sides and hands melded together like seething metal. The brunette sunk back against the door, shutting it with another chuckle, and squeezed Chloe's hand. The redhead turned back, recoiling like Beca had yanked on her, and stumbled slightly into Beca's space. They met each others' willing, flamboyant gaze's with breathless grins as the heavy rises and falls of their chests pumped to some common rhythm.

And Chloe smirked, an eyebrow raised as she cocked her head and laced her voice with mockery. "Can I have a towel?

Another laugh. Beca dipped her chin and nodded, reaching up to ruffle Chloe's wet hair. In response, the girl shook it out like a dog, much to Beca's objections if the squeals and curses springing out after Chloe were any indication.

Grinning, Chloe shook her head gently. It took her a moment to settle into the fact and idea that she was _in_ Beca's house. She'd known this girl for three years, she'd practically lived at Chloe's house for half of it, and this, the beginning of October in their senior year, was the first time she'd had more than a minimal peek through a window into the frigid house with lazy curtains.

All Chloe really had a chance to see were white-carpeted stairs that led straight up and a leering white hall that stretched too far without windows (resembling what school would feel like at nighttime). It was cramped and smelled overcooked pizza and too many air fresheners. But hasty, ragged-edged words snapped at her from a leering shadow, and Chloe leaped at the voice. "Who're you?"

It sounded accusing

"Jesus..." Chloe held a hand to her chest, trying to wipe away the shock. "Chloe. I'm Chloe. Beca's friend..." she trailed off.

Fuck.

Was this her dad?

It was her dad.

Big Papa Dukes.

Definite _fuck_.

She gestured helplessly towards the stairs Beca had fled up momentarily before, like maybe she'd reappear and drag Chloe away before a conversation could ensue.

But she wasn't there.

"Beca. Right." He nodded knowingly, like there was a purpose to every syllable he muttered and each insignificant gesture. "Where... is she?" His words were drawled out slow and unsteadily, like he was given sheet music he couldn't read.

Chloe pressed her lips thickly together. "Upstairs."

"What is she doing?"

"I... don't know. She said she needed something before... before we went to my house."

"Are you her girlfriend?"

Chloe choked on nothing and cleared her throat. "Um, excuse me?"

He looked towards the stairs wistfully. It was kind of pathetic - the glint in his eye. He went an entire lifetime screaming mistakes down peoples' throats and was only just realizing the wrongs of those decisions. "Her mother said she was seeing someone. I see your car here a lot but... you never come inside. Why is that?"

His voice sounded like he was trying to replace Aristotle by imposing life-dependant questions to churn the juices of your mind.

Maybe that's how it sounded. But it felt like something else entirely.

"I... um... w-we're just... friends," she stammered

He only nodded, but a sigh popped from beneath his tongue. Like he hadn't meant to let it go.

Chloe was about to offer she wait outside for Beca, or in the car, but her feet planted like roots on the carpet and she blurted "Jesse. She's dating a boy named Jesse." Her head hurt and his name tasted like acid. "He's... he's a good guy." She forced a weak smile.

Again, he nodded. Sadly.

"Okay, I can't find any towels, but I did-" Beca stampeded down the stairs, but her foot slipped and she staggered down the last step onto the landing when she jerked her gaze upon her dad. It had been glued to Chloe and not on her clumsy feet.

It was ridiculously cute.

"Oh! Dad."

Her voice cracked.

Why did it crack?

Beca told Chloe she and her dad were fine. They were fine. Right?

Mr. Mitchell slumped against the frame of doorway, his arms languidly crossed. Chloe didn't know someone so seemingly brittle and limp could be so intimidating within themselves.

"Beca."

Chloe didn't like the way he said her name. It wasn't right.

"W-What are you doing home?"

Why was she fumbling?

He shrugged and slapped a piece of gum between his teeth. Chloe hadn't notice he was chewing it.

"I came home early."

"Oh... you did. Cool."

Beca's really sassy. It's an undeniable quality and she lashes out with sarcastic quips a lot. Sometimes it got old and annoying. But this bland taste of the brunette was worse and Chloe shifted her gaze between the father to daughter.

"Chloe, it was a pleasure to meet you-" (no it wasn't) "-but would you mind giving us a minute? I'd like to speak with Beca in private."

Despite the reluctance ringing in her ears and inner declarations that she shouldn't leave Beca alone with him, Chloe was already nodding before he was done. "Of course, Mr. Mitche-"

"No," Beca cut in.

No?

"Whatever you want to say, Dad-" (she spit _dad_ like it was acid scorching her teeth) "-you can say it in front of her."

He looked unamused.

No - it was more than that. He was irritated and truculent and annoyed.

But he agreed - he didn't care Chloe was there.

With a disquieting sigh, he pulled a sheet of paper out from his pocket. It was wrinkled and had food stains on it from late-night stressing and poor hiding places. "I found this in your room."

"What were you doing in my room?" Her voice went in octave threateningly higher in both fear and resentment.

"You told me you never got your PSAT scores back."

The PSATs were ages ago. What did they matter now?

"I..."

"I'm holding them in my fucking hand, Beca, and they're shit."

His voice was loud. Chloe could feel herself crumbling.

"Dad, they're just-"

"You think you're going to go _anywhere_ or become _anything_ with grades like these?" Chloe blinked aggravatedly and Beca flinched, her lips flipping into a self-hating frown.

This is wrong. Chloe should _say_ something.

"Open your fucking eyes Beca and stop messing around! The rest of your life depends solely on every move you make now, and I refuse to pay a dime on an a university you can easily get a full ride in."

She needs to _do something_.

Beca interjected again. "Dad, the PSAT's don't matter! No one actually tries on them, it's not a big dea-"

"To _hell_ it's not a big deal! You're not everyone else, you're a Mitchell and I want you to start acting like it."

He was tearing Beca apart and all Chloe could do was watch.

"My grades are fine! I'm not behind in any of my classes!" she protested desperately, her voice ragged. Chloe wanted to melt away and take this scene and shred it to bits. She needed to give Beca the same salvation she's been providing for over a year.

Her dad's empty laugh vibrated her manicured bones and left a rotten taste in its wake. "You failed half your classes last year. Tell me exactly how that is _fine._"

"I got a _C_ dad, a C, that's average and it sure as hell isn't failing."

"How about you explain to me then how _average_ grades will get you anywhere in your pathetic, wasted life to-"

"_Hey_," Chloe spat, stepping between the arguing pair with her hand defensively outstretched.

_What am I doing?_

It was too far, and she'd be damned if anyone told Beca Mitchell she was pathetic. Not with Chloe around.

"Chlo..." Beca chastised weakly, tilting her head. She thought it was sweet her defenses were rising, but she didn't need it. That's what she _thought_.

"_No_, Beca, he shouldn't treat you like this. I really mean no disrespect sir, and I don't really know you, Mr. Mitchell, but frankly it is one thing to be _concerned _about your daughter's grades and encourage her to do better, and it's another, completely different concept to treat her like _this_ and insult all the wonderful things she's done. She _is_ trying and she _is_ amazing." His eyebrows rocketed but she went on. "School is the shittiest way to represent someone's level of intelligence because Beca is the _smartest_ person I know. She's beautiful and kind and generous, and I'm sure as hell that she's going to make it far." The words "_Farther than you,"_ caught in her throat, but the message was all the same.

Chloe yanked on Beca's bewildered hand, tugging her outside back into the rain. As soon as they crossed the threshold, anything Mr. Mitchell yelled after them would be lost in the roars of the spattering downpour. Chloe was still dragging Beca along when the brunette planted her feet against the redhead, whiplashing Chloe back into the girl.

"What?" she shouted over the thunder, eyebrows knitted.

Beca flipped her tongue around in her mouth, searching for words. But she couldn't find them. When had syntax ever worked for them?

Instead she threw her skinny arms around Chloe's neck, pressing herself into her, and Chloe stumbled against the car. The longer they stood out there, the wetter they got, but Chloe held Beca against herself and hugged her as tight as she needed.

As tight as words wouldn't let her.

* * *

"Chlo."

"Hm?"

"Crap. _Chlo._"

"_What?_"

"The light isn't turning on."

"Relax, we have a generator."

"Your generator's shit. Nothing's happening. It's not turning on. Jesus, we need light."

"You're so scared of the dark, aren't you?"

"No, I like being able to actually see where I'm going, thanks."

"You're scared."

"I'm not scare- what are you doing?"

"What?"

"Stop touching me."

"That isn't me, Beca."

Beca let out a scream and began slapping chaotically at Chloe's playfully wandering hands.

A fit of laughter broke out as Chloe lit the match.

"_That wasn't funny!_ What if it was some psycho dick that snuck into your house?!"

"I thought it was funny."

"You're a bastard."

"You love me."

"I hate you."

* * *

"I'm never coming to your house again." Beca stabbed her pasta with a fork viciously.

"No need to take the stress of your fears out on the food," Chloe remarked thoughtfully with a smirk. "And we both know you'll be back tomorrow."

Beca grumbled to herself, shoving a forkful between her lips (because they both knew she was right). Chloe's smile thickened and she shook her head to herself.

Beca was perfectly content just moment later, though; munching on her food and bumping knees with Chloe. She had that goofy smile she never really expressed around everyone else, like a childish desire she couldn't get enough of. Chloe smiled around her food at her, because it was the damn cutest thing.

"So... um.." Chloe made a funny face with her lips, like she always did. Almost as much as she blinked.

"Hm?" Beca pushed the pasta around again before setting her fork down, wiping her hands on her jeans. Chloe slapped her with a napkin that Beca enveloped between her fingers with an eyeroll. "Okay, but seriously, what?"

Chloe rolled her shoulder blades uncomfortably, searching for a kink she could ride out. "Um.. I was just wondering but.. what are you doing about college?"

Beca's eyebrows dug into an arch on her porcelain skin. "College?"

A subtle, dangerous nod. They were using words.

A subtle, dangerous shrug. "I don't... think I am. I mean, I'm not."

"Not?"

"Not."

"What about..."

"What about what?"

"What about Jesse?" Chloe blurted

And it was this - _this_ next line - that made Chloe's chest flutter like a stab of hope was piercing her flesh.

"What about him?"

Something must have looked off on Chloe's face (she could guarantee, though, that _nothing_ was off and she was _perfect_) because Beca smiled reassuringly, resting her hand atop Chloe's. Chloe smiled carelessly because her hands were soft.

Has she mentioned she likes soft things?

* * *

"Why are we going to this?" Beca hissed across the console of Chloe's car.

Chloe shrugged helplessly, shooting a fleeting look like she was just as nervously unsettled about it too. "I don't know - Aubrey's our friend?"

"She's dating my _boss_, Chlo," Beca deadpanned.

"What do you want _me_ to do?" she whispered back. "Tom wanted to go. You didn't exactly say no to Jesse."

"That's because you were coming," Beca said, like it was an obvious motive. Chloe peeled her pretty blue eyes back on the road as a shiver rippled through the muscles of her forearm. She was blushing, but in the dark essence clouding the car, Beca couldn't see.

Jesse and Tom hadn't been all that thrilled when Beca insisted on riding shotgun. It wasn't that the boys disliked each other, but more Jesse wanted to nuzzle his stubbled chin into Beca's neck and Tom wanted to hold his girlfriend's hand. And Tom was still in high school. Jesse was graduated. It was weird for them. They'd rarely spoken because they were two separate layers of a pole.

"I don't even know how to... bowl," Beca exasperatedly admitted, slumping back into her seat. Chloe giggled, pursed lips creating a tight line. "It's not funny!" Beca slapped Chloe's shoulder, but her lips parted and a grin broke through.

"Don't worry, I'll teach you," Chloe offered with a flirtatious wink. Beca's stomach clenched and she blinked.

"I.. I don't need teaching, thank you very much."  
"If you say so."

"Shut up."

* * *

When Chloe tugged the gear into park and climbed out of the car, it was only a matter of seconds before Beca latched to her elbow and ran inside with her, shouting back to their boy toys to "hurry up." Nonetheless, the boys exchanged irritable, knowing looks at the night to come, and an unspoken deal was made between the two.

Chloe and Beca were giggling as they stumbled inside, and Beca had her hands strewn around Chloe's neck. To the staff of the shabby bowling alley residing by a cheap strip-club, the two girls might be the couple of the night with their arms around each other. They'd deliver overly-excited, lopsided kisses after one of them made a gutter ball, or maybe Chloe's fingers would link over Beca's knuckles and she'd try and guide her to a strike.

But they wouldn't.

And, if the staff were really into over-reading nonfiction storylines, that much would be clear when Jesse and Tom entered with hands stuffed bitterly stuffed into sagging jean pockets.

Beca actually leaped upon Chloe's back with a mad scream, and Chloe nearly crumpled beneath her. She would have, actually. If Tom hadn't flown in to steady his girlfriend. Chloe smiled thankfully and he pecked her on the cheek between Beca's thrashing arms.

If the associate at the counter were paying attention, he'd notice that after that messy kiss, Beca tightened her grip protectively and steered Chloe like an animal away.

Beca dropped her chin on Chloe's shoulder. "Can you get me my bowling shoes? I have to pee." It was a whisper that tickled Chloe's neck, and she let that show as she giggled and tried to duck away. Beca, laughing, blew cool air into Chloe's ear and the girl squealed, dropping Beca to her feet clumsily.

"If you do _that_ again then I'm not getting your shoes," Chloe claimed, rubbing her ear with the palm of her hand.

Beca grinned smugly as she danced away towards the restrooms, Chloe still ringing her ear out.

Chloe bounced to Aubrey's side, who was leaning over the counter. Luke had his arm around her waist, but Aubrey smiled wide at Chloe. The best thing about her was how easily she could maintain a boy on her hip and a hand in her friend's without any argument ensued.

Chloe, on the other hand, could barely lay a minute's attention on Tom with Beca in the room.

Before she knew it, though, Tom was taking advantage of Chloe's solitude because he had her in his clutches within seconds. Aubrey flashed a knowing wink too, before Chloe could even voice thoughts to the blonde.

"Hey there," he whispered huskily in her ear. And Chloe responded positively. That's all that mattered to him, right? He just wanted the attention from his girlfriend? It was all Jesse strived for, too. If Tom got the amenity he desired, so would Jesse, because Beca would be all up for grabs.

And that's all the girl was to him. A target to ace.

When Beca emerged from the slinky-stalled bathroom with blurry mirrors, the first thing her eyes caught sight of was Chloe absorbed in Tom's embrace and the widest smile she'd had all night (not really, but Beca just couldn't see she was the one with that effect on Chloe).

And here he was. Jesse swooped in behind Beca like a stealthy predator and he had her in his arms within seconds. He spun her, he kissed her, and he closed his eyes. Beca was spun, she was kissed, her eyes were open, and she was craning to look at Chloe.

* * *

Somehow it was Jesse with his hands on Beca's waist as she rolled another spare down the alley by the second game.

Chloe grunted. '_I don't know how to bowl' my ass. _She dropped her chin in her hand heatedly.

Opposite of anyone's _realistic_ expectations - "anyone" being the bowling staff - it was Beca and Jesse being the cliche of the group.

You know the type: the lovey-dovey couple with scrunched noses in each other's faces. Beca and Jesse, everyone assumed, would be the last in the room to enhance and reciprocate adoring glances to one another.

No one expected _them_ to be the ones doing exactly what it had appeared Beca and Chloe would do when they strutted in toppling over each other.

They were _cute_ and _sweet_ and Chloe felt _sick_.

* * *

"I'm having a lot of fun tonight." Beca twirled the air around her fingertips shyly. Chloe would plaster a cute label over it if it was her Beca was talking to. But _no_. It was _Jesse_.

"Yeah?"

A quirky smile. "Yeah."

Jesse wiggled his brow. "I told you. All you gotta do is listen to me, and you'll have fun." His grin was cheerful, and Chloe wanted to throw up.

Beca tiptoed into Jesse's chest and played with the fabric of his shirt. "Oh yeah? Is that all?"

"Mhm." He nodded and Chloe wanted to leave.

"Then... can I have some more quarters?"

His laugh was sickeningly loud at her devious tone. "You're never gonna get it," he declared with amused eyes. Beca laughed and wagged a finger against his ribs and Chloe was tugging on Tom's arm.

"That's what you think. But I _will_ win that fox. I'm not leaving until I do."

Tom was whining he didn't want to leave, and Chloe couldn't find breaths to keep herself anchored.

Beca was holding her palm out with twinkling beams in her sockets and Jesse dropped another roll of quarters into it. "You're the best." She pecked him on the cheek and Chloe could feel her tongue rotting inside her teeth.

* * *

"What happened to us?"

"Hm?" Beca jerked the joystick to the left, peeking around the side of the machine to make sure the crane hovered strategically over the fox. "Does that look centered to you?"

"Bec - I'm serious."

"So am I."

Jesse raised his eyebrows, and somewhere Chloe was screaming. But not at the bowling alley. Maybe in some other decomposed alley with moldered dumpsters, she resided. Maybe that's where she was, because it's definitely what the bowling alley had felt like with Beca in Jesse's arms, and Chloe not. Not in Beca's sight. Not within her knowledge. Not with her.

Beca cleared her throat, fumbling over air. "Um." She smacked her thumb over the button, and her vision dragged across its path, watching the steel claws grasp around the fox's amiable head and... let go. A heavy sigh. "I don't... know."

Chloe was shrieking into sloppy brick walls that Beca _did_ know.

Beca turned around, gripping the control pad with her hands as she blinked up at him. Jesse's mouth perked into an affectionate smile, and his rugged fingers scanned her hair behind her ear.

"I've missed you," he whispered.

_He never had you, Beca._

"I..." Beca chuckled and beamed. "I missed you too."

_No you didn't._

* * *

"I think it's creepy."

"I know you do."

"He doesn't even go here anymore."

"I know."

"It's Christmas time. Not Valentine's."

"I know."

Chloe gritted her teeth and huffed, digging nails into the shoulder strap of her bag. Jesse had left Beca a rose in her locker on Monday. A freaking rose. Because apparently Jesse was the romantic hero of the year and managed to shape himself like clay into a fucking Hemingway. And apparently, Beca could be charmed now by cheap, cliche flowers when she _clearly_ deserved extravagantly exquisite plants like hyacinth or or sakura.

No. She liked _roses _now.

Chloe specifically remembered Beca calling an orchid pretty when she saw a picture of it her biology book one year. _Pretty_. Screw roses. Get her a fucking orchid.

* * *

"You're leaving?" Chloe sounded like a kicked puppy with a twisted paw. She might as well have been looking at Beca like she was one with that pout she bore. Beca's awing eyes let the hinges of her jaw loosen enough for her mouth to agape at the adorableness of the situation registered.

"Don't give me that look, Chloe. I promised Jesse."

She called her Chloe.

"I promise we'll do something tomorrow, yeah? Get food or something."

What happened to Chlo?

What happened to saying no to the boys and spending endless hours playing video games? To scooping icing out of the container and slabbing it across the other's nose, or watching the game with her dad and listening to Beca's shrill screams when she began to lose the bet made with the same father?

_Jesse_ happened.

Beca dragged Chloe down the stairs from her bedroom. Beca was pretty in her black button-up shirt, and Chloe was a mess with the makeup-reminiscence of that day smeared across her face and another flowing basketball shirt.

Chloe continued and held up her obvious pout as Beca leaned against the front door.

"Hey, what'd I say about that face?" Beca warned, lopping her finger around dangerously.

Chloe stuck her tongue out before promptly crossing her arms across the chest that was breaking.

"Tomorrow, okay?" Beca cupped Chloe's cheek with her _soft_, gentle fingers. A smile tugged at Chloe's lips, and Beca squealed. "See!? Yes! _That_'s the annoying smile I love."

As Chloe defeatedly sighed with a grin, shaking her head and repeated "Tomorrow," Beca swooped in and pecked Chloe's cheek, her warm lips acutely pressuring the indent of Chloe's cheekbone. A hot blush fluttered up her skin but she rolled her eyes and pushed at Beca's shoulders usheringly. "Go! C'mon, we can't have the princess late for her _precious_ date."

Beca rolled her eyes. "I'll text you later."

And she was gone.

But Chloe couldn't scream anymore.

"Oh, was that Beca that just left?"

Sarah, Chloe's mom, tiptoed into the landing, wiping down the soap dribbling from her wrist and down her forearm with a damp rag. She must have been doing dishes, peaking a keen ear on a hushed conversation with dead-out screams.

Chloe told her it was.

"Huh," she posed thoughtfully, her lips shrugging in a shadowy cast.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"_Mom_."

"Nothing!"

Chloe growled aggravatedly, stirring the still air around her with flying hands to express the frustration she held. She made a motion of strangling her mother before she began to stomp across the landing to the teetering stairs.

"It's just-" Sarah drooped into the smoothed wooden arch leading connecting the lit foyer with a sparkling living room. The same living room Beca took this charge and introduced herself to Chloe's mom. The same room Beca made an _impression_ in. Chloe wanted to scream.

"It's just what?"

"Do I need to be worried? About... you and Beca?" Sarah carefully inquired with a twitch in her eye and a grimace in her lips. "Because- well, I've never had to worry. You're responsible, and you don't bring boys up to your room but... I'm just wondering if I need to... set some ground rules... about you and Beca."

Why was everyone asking if her and Beca were together?

Both direct occasions had occurred _without_ Beca actually there, and it made Chloe wonder how many times people breathed down the other girl's neck about it.

"Mom... uh... Beca and I... we're just... friends." It was an unhealthy stammer and she laughed nervously to top it off like a cherry on a big fat sundae.

Why did she laugh like that?

God, she was an idiot.

Her mom'd never believe her. Believe the horrid _truth_.

"Friends," her mom echoed, like a foreign term she was yet to familiarize herself with.

"Friends," Chloe repeated.

"Right," her mom snickered, shaking her head as she dropped her hands and turned back into the kitchen.

"Mom!" Chloe protested, her voice high as she leaned over the railing of the staircase, arching to get a look at her. But her mom vanished, and the echo of laughs rung on Chloe's ear. Did _anyone_ believe her?

Her mom called back to her that she loved her, but Chloe never returned the affection. She felt sick again, because she wished she could trick herself into thinking the same things her mom was. She wished she had to ask Beca for clarification because at least it meant she had a _chance_ and God she felt sick.

* * *

"Are you going to the Valentine's dance?" Chloe inquired seriously, but let it dwindle off to appear like a sidetracked, absent thought as she thumbed her pencil over knuckles.

Beca raised incredulous eyebrows as her lips wrapped around the straw of a smoothie. Chloe bought it for her. Chloe couldn't remember the last time Jesse bought a smoothie like that for her, because her favorites were offered only at the school cafeteria. Chloe wasn't sure if Jesse ever even bought her one at all. Beca had to be thinking about it too. Chloe felt too sick for her not to be. If Beca threw it up, was she sick because of Jesse? Or was Chloe simply incapable of pressing a few buttons on a machine to sputter out a classic drink?

Chloe blinked and rested her chin on her arms.

"The dance?" Beca echoed. After pursed lips thoughtfully rolled around her face, she shrugged. "Yeah, probably."

"With who?" Her voice trembled and she could feel the noose tightening around her throat.

Beca snorted and her eyebrow up again. "Um. Jesse."

Like it was _obvious_. Like Chloe should have _known_. Like Chloe should be able to _feel_ her tongue behind her teeth right now. Like Chloe shouldn't feel like Beca dumped her smoothie into her chest and allowed her heart to succumb to the crunched ice.

"You're going, right?" This was more said more about wanting to get ready with Chloe, but the melancholy redhead could only stare at her best friend and wonder why cliches hurt so goddamn much.

Beca thought that the silence that swallowed Chloe was her simply in a teasing, careful thought. She saw a smile Chloe didn't even try and wear because it was what Beca wanted to see. She thought she'd captured a fairytale between her fingers, and now she was building off of it with a fantasy she didn't know how to let go of.

But finally, Chloe's dry lips crackled as she forced a smile. They were scissors slicing a ragged gap in her face to reveal teeth, and she wanted to cry. Like _really_ cry, in the dumb pathetic way you see on TV and the stupid descriptions you find in trashy novels. She just wanted to _cry_ because she didn't know what else to do.

But her brain was soothing the ache in her stomach and moved her lips. "Yeah. W-With Tom. I'm going. With Tom. Yeah."

_Yeah_.

* * *

Chloe would like this version of Jesse, Beca thought.

She _would_.

How could she not?

Jesse _changed._ He was different. He'd graduated and matured and his smile wasn't crooked anymore. He was _sweet_ now and _charming_. He wasn't cute anymore, but handsome and wildly appealing.

He made Beca happy in a way she only thought Chloe could.

If she were able to choose the source of that kind of emotion, didn't it make sense to nestle into someone that was already hers? The one with a 100% guarantee of acceptance, not rejection?

It made _sense_ to pick Jesse. It made _sense_ to be friends with Chloe.

It all just made _sense _and for once she just felt so goddamn normal she could never let it go.

* * *

"We should date sometime," she blurted when Chloe opened her locker.

Chloe froze. Like Beca sifted a remote from her jacket and _paused_ Chloe. Except the girl didn't pause, she didn't hesitate; she just _froze_.

Beca's eyes widened and her mouth felt full and wet and she shook her head. "No! Not like that. I-I.. Double date. Like... you and Tom, and Jesse and me."

She said _Jesse and me_.

_Jesse and me._

_Jesse. _

_And._

_Me._

Chloe felt sick.

"Double date..." she drawled, clearing her throat and packing through her books. The hallway was alive and buzzing with lame chatter that barely even reached her ears. All she could hear was _Jesse and me_. Was that even proper grammar?

"Yeah. Maybe for the dance or something." Beca was beaming and Chloe wanted to slap that adorably plastered grin off her face.

"Double date."

"Uh.. yeah."

"You and your boyfriend with me and... Tom."

Beca frowned slightly, the skin around her eyes twitching, but she nodded again. "Yeah.. I just... I think you should get to know Jesse better. You'd really like him, Chloe."

She called her Chloe again.

Chloe wanted to say no. She didn't want to know Jesse. She _wanted_ something and it was to say _no_. But Beca was Jesse's, she was his territory now, so it was clear to her she'd never really get what she wanted.

"Okay."

_Okay._

* * *

They're walking out the front doors, and they're supposed to do something. Together. Just them. They're _supposed_ to, and maybe they can sit in the pizza booth side-by-side again as they pick at their food and lean into each others' shoulders and twirl fingers and it'd be so goddamn corny and cliche and lame that Chloe might burst and Beca might comment on it and they might _talk_.

They were _supposed_ to.

But when Chloe was unlocking her car, a pair of arms sprawled out of nowhere and grabbed Beca by the waist and Chloe screamed and she turned and Beca... squealed into Jesse's mouth. He was _pressing her against Chloe's goddamn car_. Was that enough motive to kick his ass? Chloe could actually _see _his tongue protrude into her mouth and she felt like she was going to vomit. Or cry. Maybe both.

Beca peeled her lips away - puffy red lips that she licked over (she licked over the taste of his mouth) and Chloe turned because she thought she was going to be sick (really sick).

"Are you busy today?" he'd throatily murmured into her hair and Chloe couldn't breathe as she looked away.

"I... I'm hanging out with Chloe today." She sounded so reluctant to say it.

"You're always with her. Come be with me today," he whined. _God, _he was actually whining and Chloe could see he was the exact same as he always was and she wanted to knee him in the gut.

"I know, and I want to, I do but-"

Chloe couldn't hear anymore because her eyes were stinging. They stung, and not in an emotional or metaphorical way for her to appear like she was poetically broken and some pile of rubble to be marveled. They _stung_ and she could feel the wetness of a tear break through her eyelashes and slither down her cheek. They felt like razors and tasted like poison and it only made another burst from her leaky eyes.

_She wants him_.

Chloe wiped at her eyes with her sleeve, and the fabric scratched and wasn't the same soft coat she bought at the mall over winter break with Beca. It wasn't soft and it made her want to be wrecked to the ground with breathless sobs but she wiped her eyes harder and she knew they had to be pink but the tears were gone and she knew she wasn't crying anymore.

"-we can do something then, okay?" Beca finished as Chloe turned back with feet that felt like they were buried in molding dirt.

"Go," Chloe ordered with an internal wail.

To Beca, it was encouragement.  
"What?"

"Just go," Chloe murmured defeatedly again, shaking her head. "He's right. You see me all the time. Just... go. Go have fun, I guess."

Beca was staring at Chloe and Jesse was staring at Chloe until he wasn't and he was staring at Beca now but Beca was still staring at Chloe like she could see the tears. Chloe hoped she could. Or maybe she didn't. She wasn't sure anymore about anything except that she wished it would stop hurting like this.

It didn't matter what she wanted because Beca couldn't see. "Are you sure?"

It didn't matter if she was sure because Beca's eyes were gleaming with excitement and Chloe already lost her.

"Yeah. Sure. Whatever."

Yeah.

Sure.

_Whatever. _

* * *

"Since when do you even _like_ shopping?"

Chloe was sounding more like the bitter and despondent girl Beca once was with every hiss of breath she took. Her dragged posture and the wavering blue eyes that once gleamed a sky blue were now succumbed to the night as her city fell into darkness.

"Since when do you _not_?" Beca challenged right back as she held a lacy white cocktail dress along her torso, but her tone was so playful it made Chloe sick at being the only stoic one around. "Are you saying you already have something to wear too?"

Chloe rolled her eyes and leaned back. Fuck Beca and fuck Jesse.

"Didn't think so. What do you think?"

She still had the white dress and it was so not Beca it made Chloe look away before back up at Beca's face instead. "It's fine."

"You think so?" And she had that damn adorable smile again with twinkling eyes Chloe sighed as Beca looked back down at herself. "It's... a little short."

Chloe knitted her fingers through themselves, staring at her melding, icy hands.

"I..." Her jaw slacked open, and Beca looked into her expectantly. She swallowed hard like sand was ground between her teeth. "It's too much," she breathed, thinking hard. "You'll... you'll be uncomfortable in it most of the night. You... You look stunning and beautiful in it but... It's not your style."

Beca blinked, because the déjà vu of the words she told Chloe over a year ago were blanketing her. She gnawed on her lip, a hesitance flashing before she nodded and disappeared off to the dressing room.

When she came back a few minutes later, she bore a knee-length dress, the color that of the blackness Chloe's eyes had become. It gleamed and shimmered in the fluorescence, and Chloe could only imagine it under the twinkling pink lights roped across the gymnasium ceiling.

Before Beca could search for approval, Chloe blurted "Are you excited?"

"Excited?"

Chloe nodded, fingering the fabric of a dress Beca had discarded.

A delicate smile softly intertwined Beca's lips, and the way her toe buried into the carpet shyly and that shrug she gave made Chloe's stomach lurch in her throat and the jealousy and rejection flowed through her like a boiling ice submerged in her lungs.

* * *

"You... you look... I... You..."

Chloe blinked at Beca after emerging from the bathroom. "What?"

Beca was sitting at the foot of the stairs, and her chin leaped from her palm when Chloe joined her.

"Is it too much?" Her voice was fretful and her hand leaped to her throat. "I.. I borrowed the necklace from my mom... I thought it was very... captivating," she mused, staring down at the flamboyant necklace splashed across her chest.

Beca rose to her feet to step to Chloe. Her fingertips brushed along Chloe's collarbone as she examined the piece of jewelry, before she nodded. "It is too much."

Chloe was a kicked puppy with those wide eyes. "It is?" Panic.

Beca smirked gently, rolling her eyes before she reached around to unhook it. She couldn't feel the girl's breath on her face anymore (Chloe had stopped breathing) but she didn't notice as she handed it back to the redhead. "It's too distracting. We'd all rather see your face than some dumb necklace."

And _God_ did Chloe blush. A blush that flooded her pores and cascaded along her shoulders.

"But uh, I like this. It's cute, Chlo. I didn't see you buy it." Beca now gestured down to the emerald-blue dress that wrapped around Chloe's neck, hugged tight at her defined, curved hips and flowed like mist at her shins. It made the biceps in her arms look goldenly slim and toned, and with Chloe's hair upturned and twisted, she was ready to be this piercing poster-girl for natural beauty.

Chloe grinned, and she blinked a lot, because it had been months since Beca called her Chlo.

* * *

When Chloe clicked off her phone, she felt the sigh bubbling in her throat, a custom with Tom. Tom had apologized like a dangling prayer, and the traffic holding him up wasn't really his fault. If anything, she was glad for more time to spend with Beca alone, even if the brunette was worrying herself out because Jesse hadn't called or texted to excuse _his_ tardiness.

* * *

Tom arrived at some point with a green corsage that didn't match her dress and didn't match her hair and it was itchy on her wrist. She forced a smile, and Beca was sitting on the stairs, languid because Jesse still hadn't called. Before Tom could suggest otherwise, Chloe snapped that they'd wait before scratching at her wrist and she was pretty sure the flower was fake.

* * *

"Anything?"

"No."

"He'll be here."

"I know."

Tom grunted. Chloe stomped on his foot.

* * *

"It's me... Beca... again..." Beca flushed in the dim lighting of Tom's pick-up, cringing at being squished between him and Chloe. It was awkward. "I don't know where you are," she mumbled into the voicemail, her knees shaking. "But I'm just riding there with Chlo and Tom."

She called her Chlo again, and so Chloe smiled a little.

"I'll meet you there, I guess."

When Beca hung up, Chloe took her hand but didn't look at her. She squeezed it, but Beca didn't respond, and she stared out the windshield.

* * *

"I want to _dance_ with my _girlfriend_."

Chloe was pretty sure he said that already, and she wasn't sure how she felt about being called his girlfriend. They've been together for over a year, but sometimes she refused to admit they were even dating.

"I told you," she hissed into his ear, clawing at his wrist. "We will _wait_ with her until he gets here becau-"

"Just go," Beca broke in. "I'm gonna go outside and try calling him again. _Go_." Her hand flicked dismissively and Chloe wanted to hold her. Beca wasn't screaming like Chloe did when her chest crumpled, but she didn't know what that meant.

* * *

On the seventh ring, someone picked up.

But it wasn't Jesse.

It was some girl.

"Um... I... is Jesse... who is this?" Beca's eyes traced jagged patterns along the linoleum wall of the bathroom and she felt like the cold edge of it was peeling into her ribs.

"Who's this?" The girl - no, _woman_ retorted back with an echo.

"I..." Beca blinked, and she thought of Chloe, and she checked the screen of her phone to make sure she called the right number. Jesse's name burrowed darkly beneath the time. "Is Jesse around?"

"Is this Beca?"

There was a strangled, choking silence and Beca's stomach was lurching and collapsing in her gut and she wanted to sit down. She heard an intake of breath on the other end, but this time interrupted by a familiar voice.

"_What are you doing?"_ Jesse's muffled but moderately calm voice broke through from the background. But Beca wasn't sure whether relief was okay to feel yet.

"_Who's on the phone?"_ he went on.

"It's that girl you mentioned, Becky."

"_Beca? You- Give me the phone, Iris, I-"_

The woman, Iris, was back into Beca's ear and manipulating the thoughts in her head and Beca couldn't breathe and her eyes were stinging really bad and she could feel her shoulderblades tightening and the way her chest concaved and God she just wanted to breathe again. "I want you to stop stalking my boyfriend and leave him alone," Iris deadpanned into the receiver, but an underlying tone of aggravated jealousy peaked within her voice. "It's fucking crazy, so stop before I call the co-"

Beca hung up and the tears pooled through.

* * *

Tom's arms are looped too low around Chloe's waist, and she feels smothered by an uncomfortable, sticky heat. He always presses her into his shoulder and she hates it. She wants to tell him, but every time she pulls away, he does too, and he has this lopsided grin that... her face just falls and she forces her own smile too bleak to match with her eyes.

It's been awhile since Beca retreated to call her Douchebag-Dan boyfriend. Either he picked up and told her he was on his way, or he hadn't answered. Whatever the outcome, she would run back in here with either a delighted, reassured smile or the same empty disappointment.

_Either way_, she should be back.

The next time Chloe peeled off of Tom's chest, it was to crane her neck to the double-doors of the gym and she could feel his lopsided grin glowing too hot again against her neck.

And Beca was retreating.

The entire dance had been patronizing her and now she realized what was supposed to be comfortable territory was now the enemy lines. And she was stuck in the middle of it.

"Tom, stop," Chloe mumbled, swatting at his shoulder like her arms were wading through water: slow and sluggish. He was nuzzling a crooked nose into her neck and it was annoying. It wasn't cute, it wasn't sexy, and it was annoying.

Chloe was running after Beca, the jagged music slicing along her pores and opening them both into the miscellaneous and contaminated air.

"Beca!" Chloe called out, ungracefully slabbering her body against the glass door. Beca was briskly walking like she was invincible, like she didn't care and like she was the same wallowing sophomore that was telling Chloe _don't be friends with me _and _you can do better_ and _you don't want a reputation like yours screwed up by being around a girl like me_.

"Where are you going?"

Beca stopped, but it was like a pendulum in motion, a cycle. The energy being used to push herself inside and away from this school, the energy to run away and hide - she shifted it into her heel and spun, swirling as a frenzy of words fled like the noise of a banshee from her lips. And the next thing Chloe knew, Beca had hurled her cell phone at the cement walls of the melancholy high school and the words "_He's a fucking asshole!"_ were ringing in her ears.

And now Beca had whirled on Chloe, knees bent like she was explaining something to a child. But her words were so loud and cracked and broken, anyone would know she was talking to Chloe - the older and mature senior in-high-school Chloe. Who else would Beca open so rawly to with an interminable length of emotions baring in her teeth and exploding along her tongue? Everyone's first thought was _Chloe_ and it seemed so normal because it really was _Chloe_.

But why did it feel so wrong?

"I fucking trusted him," Beca illustrated, her fists clenching and Chloe could hear the skin curl like rubber. It didn't sound like Beca anymore. Her voice hurt and it was too much. It wasn't right. It was irrational and over the top. "I thought he'd fucking changed."

"Beca, what did he-" Her voice was calm throughout the chaos but Beca wasn't finished.

"I _trusted him!_" she shrieked again with this 'I-should-have-listened' tone (to who, Chloe wasn't sure).

Chloe sucked in a small gap of distance between them, taking one step forward, but Beca leaped like Chloe was the enemy now. Like Chloe was another of the strangers she couldn't recognize. Chloe was blinking hard, her hand outstretched when she froze.

"Don't," Beca warned - no, she _threatened_. Her voice trembled with every intake of breath and Chloe wondered if those even were breaths, if they even satisfied her suffocating lungs. She looked like she was about to say more along that line of thought, but her quivering lower lip was sucked between her teeth. She turned as acidic tears melted the flesh from her cheeks.

"I... I thought it'd be different," she confessed quietly, her wide eyes wild with abstraction. "I thought... I thought he could make me happy. I thought he.. he could be you."

Her voice was so quiet and vulnerable Chloe didn't know if the malady in her gut was even temporary anymore. She watched her best friend horrifically, and she took another step forward. Chloe's voice was layered with pounds and pounds of crooning care, a gentle softness Jesse would never know."Beca, I-"

She never got a chance to express it.

"_Stop_! Just fucking _stop,_ Chloe!"

Chloe stood still.

"_Stop_ talking and _stop _trying to make it better because you _can't _and _stop_ being perfect. Just _stop_ and shut _up._"

The following gust of wind rustled her hair and Beca turned into the darkness, jaw muscles tight and throbbing against her porcelain skin as she shivered.

Chloe barely even hesitated, seemingly unphased.

She stepped into Beca one last time, and Beca was an immobile empty carcass swaying against the hard breeze with wide eyes looking up at Chloe. "C'mere," the taller girl murmured, arms outstretched.

And Beca fell into her.

She collapsed into Chloe, arms thrashing around her waist and scrabbling against the cliff she was hanging from. Chloe held her gently and calmly, humming a soft tune as she whispered _shh_ into her soft hair.

"You.." Chloe began, her gentle voice strained to remain calm and endearing. She shook her head as she cradled Beca to her chest and her face buried in her collarbone. "You are stubborn." Chloe swallowed thickly, her fingers loosening the knots in Beca's hair. "And frustrating. I don't care what you say, _you're_ the frustrating one. But.." Chloe chuckled dryly, seemingly unconsciously pulling Beca in tighter. "We both know I love it." She inhaled deeply, the current shaking, and she whispered into her ear "He'll never be worthy of someone as much of a pain in the ass as you, Beca."

Beca stood still. Stiller than the stirring air and stiller than a hurricane.

And Beca was pulling away and she wasn't hesitating and she was pressing up high and she was on her toes and she was capturing Chloe's mouth with hers and she tasted like beautiful tears. Beca was kissing her and she was tugging on the loose fabric of Chloe's dress, tugging her into her and just grappling her closer and she had her lips between hers and she was kissing her and Chloe wondered why she'd ever wanted to use words because nothing compared to the softness of Beca Mitchel's sweet lips and Chloe never knew how much she wanted Beca's lips rhythmically bouncing along within her own until now.

But the surprise knocked her off her orbit and Chloe stepped back. It was slight, but it unlocked the hot, desperate breaths locking their lips together - and it was enough.

Beca shoved at Chloe's chest like Chloe had been the one to swoop down and cup her cheek first. It was a hard push, much rougher than the shock of the kiss itself and Chloe staggered back.

"_Fuck!_" Beca screeched, crouching and hands flying to her forehead in desperate shame.

Chloe dazedly swayed in her space. Beca Mitchell kissed her. She remained dumbfounded like this even as Beca began to march off defiantly, until she blinked the haze away and the wake of Beca's lips wasn't enough to occupy her thoughts anymore.

"Wait - no, Beca, dammit, _wait!_ It's okay - I- It's fine, I- _Beca!_"

Chloe was bending forward, her feet hiccuping as she began to follow after a fleeing Beca.

When she felt Chloe jogging after her, Beca broke into a run, until it was a full sprint, and she was just...

She was just gone.

* * *

She was in Chloe's doorway at 2:57 AM.

She was shivering and she stared up at her with empty and helpless eyes.

Why didn't it feel like this was about Jesse anymore?

Chloe rubbed her own sockets when she answered the door. She had the same 76ers shirt on as when Beca first knocked on the door, but Beca's black dress was heavy and slunken on her body and her eyes were even darker. Beca eyes flickered down and she didn't think Chloe was wearing any shorts. She didn't want to think about it, though, because it was never about anything remotely sexual between them.

"You have raccoon eyes," Chloe mused monotonously as she leaned against the doorway. Beca didn't move, and Chloe stood up again, stepping closer to Beca as she gestured around to the smudged makeup painted around Beca's eyes. "Your eyeliner is kind of everywhere."

"I know," Beca said.

But the apology was in her eyes and Chloe didn't need her words.

Beca just shivered one more time before Chloe took her hand and led her upstairs. The destination didn't even matter anymore.

* * *

Beca awoke blinking off fluorescent lights that invaded her eyelids and hurt her head. And God, the music was awful.

"_Why'd you have to go and make things so complicated?_" Chloe sung into her hairbrush, imprinting her knees at the foot of the bed (they'd slept together last night, and Chloe put her arms around Beca, and Beca had tugged on her shirt and she'd cried for a couple hours until she fell asleep).

"_I see the way you're actin' like you're somebody else; gets me frustra-ted._"

"You need to stop," Beca grumbled from beneath a protective arm crooked across her face.

Chloe bent forward to swipe it out of the way and continued to passionately belt out uneven lyrics that sounded scratchy and too low (Chloe had a surgery in her throat last summer, and the only way anyone could tell was when she strained her voice - like singing. And Beca could definitely tell).

"_Yeah, life's like this, you fall and you crawl and you-_"

"Shut _up_!" Beca yanked her pillow from behind her and swiped it out at Chloe's bobbing head.

A squeal interrupted Chloe's chorus and she ducked.

* * *

"_He was a boy_..." Chloe murmured along, grinning across the bed at Beca (her eyes were closed, and she was trying to sleep, but it seemed as if Chloe would sing whenever she was peacefully within arm's-length of a slumber).

"_She was a girl. Can I make it any more obvious?_"

"I hate Avril Lavigne," Beca mumbled.

"I think she's catchy."

"She's annoying."

"_He was a punk. She did ballet..._"

* * *

It worked when Chloe moved on to the _It's The Best Damn Thing_ album (after suffering through the entireties of _Let Go_ and _Under My Skin_) and starting singing "_Hey hey, you you, I don't like your girlfriend, no way, no way, think you need a new one_. _Hey hey, you you, I could be your girlfriend._"

Beca tried superlatively hard to remain a grumpy slob outstretched and facedown on the mattress. It was cute, really, that she tried to keep the act up for so long. But the _words_ were just so tempting to fantasize a public serenade over (even Beca had those embarrassing desires) that she couldn't stop smiling into Chloe's pillow.

Chloe let out a giddy squeal, thrusting her fingers into Beca's side and this agape grin is overflowing her straight teeth.

Beca was pretty sure Chloe was staring at her lips a lot now, and she couldn't help but stare back every time

* * *

"Thank you," Beca murmured, eyelashes blinking uncertainly like Chloe's should be. She wiped at her bleary, charcoaled eyes, and stepped closer into Chloe. She remembered how it felt to kiss the redhead, how desperate she'd been to unlock a code inside her skull and freeze the moment for eternity. Or to simply erase everything but them, so it could continue without any need for a pause.

Chloe painted a sculpture with the way she tucked Beca's stiff hair aside - behind the ear, up over her forehead, sweeping along her cheekbones - and couldn't stop thinking about when Beca kissed her. She wanted to reciprocate that intimacy again because she knew she'd never feel Beca as intimately as that moment again.

Jesse was an asshole, but he still remained. Beca hadn't kicked him out yet.

"And I'm sorr-"

"You don't need to apologize," Chloe assured in a small voice. She couldn't stop fretting over Beca's hair (but really she just needed somewhere to look so she kept her eyes from Beca's red mouth).

"Yes I do."

When Chloe said "_No you don't,_" more firmly, she hoped Beca understood that she was really saying "_Please don't apologize because it means you regret the kiss and it was the best thing to have ever happened to me."_

She wasn't sure if Beca got the message.

(She did, but Beca wasn't sure if that was the message Chloe meant to get across)

* * *

They hugged, it was tight and warm, and Beca left. When Chloe shut the door, she pressed back against it. It was uncomfortable but she couldn't move as she gathered her fingers across her lips.

There was something threatening and dangerous about a kiss from Beca Mitchell.

While it could be something she feeds off for millenniums sufficiently, it's the exact lethal dose to send her whirling to the emergency room.

Chloe sighed and closed her eyes. Beca _kissed _her. But she was upset. But she kissed her. Did she mean it? Did she-

"Talking to yourself now?"

Chloe blinked her eyes open. Her mother was propped against the frame of the archway, smirking at her daughter. Chloe offered a weak smile.

"Probably."

Her mom nodded and held out one of the mugs she had in her grasp. Chloe inhaled the tendrils of hot chocolate leaking into the air, and God did she love her mom.

"Thanks."

But her mom didn't leave.

She really didn't want to have a talk right now. Not now. (She wanted Beca, but she'd never admit it out loud. Especially not to her mom - she didn't even know if she was gay. Or whatever.)

"When I was in high school, I dated a girl," her mother blurted. It wasn't even a blurt, actually. Just... a random remark.

Chloe choked on her hot chocolate.

(It was really hot in the first place)

"Um, okay?" Chloe's cheeks burned. She was going to melt like those neighbors in some short story she read for school after going to the carnival.

But Sarah only smirked, glancing down at her cup. "My mother - your Nana - she despised it. She almost sent me to boot camp, but my dad got her to settle on a Catholic summer camp, and Jenna - my girlfriend - her parents made her move. I saw her a few years again after I married your father. She's married now, too. To a woman. She's really happy, and so am I."

Chloe swallowed thickly.

Beca would be amazed at how fast she'd stuffed so many blinks in that period.

"So... you're like, gay?" she asked her mother feebly. Her smile was uncertain and feeble. Pathetic.

But she laughed, grinning. "No, Chloe. Honestly, I don't consider gender a boundary in love. I loved Jenna, but I love your dad now. Gender never mattered to me. It still doesn't."

Chloe couldn't breathe.

"I just want you to know. I'll support you through anything you do. I love you, Chloe. You are my world, and I don't want you to be scared."

Her eyes stung. Chloe's hand had never felt so empty.

"I like Beca. She's good for you. And I think you make her happy."

Chloe's face was contorting. Tears leaked like loose faucets and she looked away.

"She's with someone else," she murmured quietly. She knew it all along, but right now it was a heavier reality than ever. Even if Jesse was a cheating asshole.

"Come here, monkey girl." Chloe wasn't sure when she set down her cup, but she did so as well and stuffed herself within her mother's embrace. She sobbed into her mother's shirt, hiccuping and probably rubbing snot all over her mother's shoulder. The tale of last night were knells clashing in her skull, and she let them pour out with every detail she could remember.

"I think I love her, Mom," she mumbled, her breaths shallow.

She'd never felt so empty, but so congested with physical pain. She was sure she needed an X-ray and that her ribs were splintering her heart, or that her lungs had collapsed into deflated, pathetic lumps inside her chest.

When she collected herself, she rubbed the remnants of makeup from her eyes. "God, I'm a mess."

"I won't tell you what to do," Sarah went on, collecting Chloe's hair behind her ear. "I never even said goodbye to Jenna, and look how wonderful and blessed my life is now." She smiled softly. "But I also know that when I saw Jenna again, with someone else, it was the worst I'd felt in a long time." After a pause, she laughed genuinely, her arm tightening around Chloe's frail shoulders. "Don't get me wrong, I love your father to death. Even if he thinks I need more character development for my latest masterpiece."

Chloe laughed, wiping her nose across her sleeve.

"Thanks, Mom." She looked up gently, gratefully, and pursed her lips into a grateful smile. "I'm okay."

Sarah huffed, tugging Chloe back into a hug. "I love you, my little Bee."

Chloe leaned and molted into her side. She felt so revealed and vulnerable, but there's something relieving when your parents have such a tuned instinct that they know who you are before you do.

"I love you too."

* * *

"Hi."

"...hey."

Chloe gnawed on her lips, twirling the drawstrings of her shorts. "How are you?"

She could picture Beca nibbling on the inside of her cheek, curled on her bed. Door locked. (The thought made her hurt more, so she pushed it away).

"I'm good. How're you?"

This is too formal.

She feels sick.

She ruined it.

"I'm good. Yeah. I'm good." _No I'm not._

"That's good."

"Yeah."

It's more than just phone lines and bad reception between them.

Could she live without another kiss if it meant it wasn't like this between them anymore?

She didn't want to be the one to answer it. She was afraid if she said yes, it'd be true.

"Do you recognize me?" she whispered.

"Hm?" Beca was falling asleep.

Chloe rubbed at her eyes exasperatedly. "Go to sleep, Bec. You're tired. I'll... see you Monday or something."

She could almost see Beca shaking her head defiantly, in that cute little way like she was tougher than she actually was (Beca was the toughest person Chloe knew, but she'd never tell her that). "No, what do you mean?"

Chloe swallowed, blinking. She would most definitely _not_ cry right now. Too embarrassing. "Um... just... last year. You told me you recognize me. As a whole." She blushed that she remembered that conversation in the very same bedroom she was holed up in word-for-word. "I just, um. You said you don't recognize people. But you recognize me."

The other line was dead silence.

It went on for a few more seconds before Chloe sighed in desperation, verge of tears, and hastily said "Forget it. Forget I said anything. Like I said, j-just go to bed and I'll-"

"I miss you."

If she had a heart monitor right now, it'd be screeching. Either because her heart stopped and was a deadweight inside of her, or because it pattered on like the wings of a hummingbird.

"I... I just saw you this morning."

Chloe knew what Beca meant. She'd never wanted Beca so as much as she did now.

"I know. Sorry. I'm being stupid."

After the scarcest beat of hesitation, Chloe mumbled "I miss you too."

Beca cleared her throat. "Um, so - Monday?"

Chloe's chest sunk. "Monday," she confirmed.

* * *

It was awkward. So fucking awkward. Beca refused to look Chloe in the eye. Sometimes she ignored her completely. She greeted Chloe with a few words, scratched the back of her head, and a shrug. She greeted Aubrey with a hug.

Chloe knew it was unfair, but envy boiled in her.

When Aubrey hugged her after, she was searching for the residue of Beca leftover. She found none, and met Beca's eyes over Aubrey's thin shoulder. Beca looked away.

It was really stupid.

At lunch, Beca sat between someone Chloe was positive Beca didn't recognize, and Aubrey. Chloe was too far away to hold her hand, or press their knees together.

She excused herself and tried to remember how to breathe in the bathroom.

Really stupid.

Chloe sought out Beca between classes, waiting at her locker, but she was almost certain that Beca spotted her before Chloe did, and steered away. It made her feel sick that Beca would rather be late than talk to her.

It used to be that she'd rather talk to Chloe than be on time.

She felt petty and worthless when she sucked back tears with extreme difficulty.

* * *

Beca didn't know what was wrong with her. She saw Chloe that morning, she saw those lips, and remembered how nothing, absolutely _nothing_ could compare to the soft texture of that mouth, and she relished in the memory of tugging on Chloe's dress to pull her closer.

She remembered how Chloe held her until she fell asleep, even after she screamed in her face.

She remembered how Chloe sang to her like she meant she could be her girlfriend.

She remembered hugging Chloe back.

She remembered the way Chloe whispered _I miss you too_.

And she just... she couldn't.

She stared wide-eyed at Chloe and she couldn't step any closer. If she did, she would let go of everything and crash their lost lips together like it was all either of them had ever needed.

And she couldn't.

She was thankful for Aubrey coming around, because if someone didn't hold her, she was sure to fall apart. And maybe she could pretend it was Chloe's arms around her.

If she sat next to Chloe now at lunch, their sides pressed together, she was sure she'd lose it. How could he be expected to maintain herself in a position like that? They weren't _together_ and no one _thought_ they were. And Chloe was with Tom and Beca was with...

She was with...

Beca stabbed her fork into her stir fry.

Beca was alone.

In the interim of classes, with the halls bleeding to nearly empty, she couldn't stand to face Chloe. She knew she would press that girl up against the locker and _scream_ that she was-

That she was what?

In love with her?

No.

Beca didn't know what love felt like but...

She couldn't.

Maybe she did, but she definitely couldn't.

* * *

"Beca." No.

"Beca?" Oh God.

Beca was being torn in half. Literally. Some authoritative power up in the sky was crooning down over her and decided to wretch her apart with its massive, ropy hands and leave her on the pavement, leaking blood and bones.

She could see Jesse in front of her. He pushed himself off his car and darted forward the second she slipped through the doors outside. It'd been sunny moments ago, but the same higher ascendency had cascaded the screen around her with clouds and blurry hurricanes.

But she could also feel Chloe rushing towards him from behind her to meet him halfway.

"What the _hell_ do you think you're doing here?" she screeched into his unruly frown, shoving him back. It was like scratching at steel, and he stared down at her like a bug in the crack on the sidewalk.

Strewn-about people were turning their necks and watching as they passed.

Beca felt dreadfully alone.

"Back off, Chloe. This is between me and Beca," Jesse said, staring down with a warning flaring in his dirty eyes.

"Like hell it is," she growled, pushing him again. If Beca didn't feel her organs dissolving inside of her and her brain evaporating, she might find this wild-eyed Chloe to be... well, hot, frankly. For lack of a better word.

"Get out of here, Jesse. She doesn't want to talk to you."

"Chloe, I mean it." His unwavering eyes met hers, and he stared her down (tried to). He was menacing, and Beca wanted to punch him out for looking at Chloe like that. _No one_ was allowed to threaten her like that. "Back off."

Beca's knuckles coiled into fists by her thighs.

"Make me." Chloe stood tall against him, and Beca desperately wanted to pull her away. Every bit of knowledge that Jesse wouldn't harm a soul fled with an ultimate yell, and she wondered if he would actually lay a finger against her.

"I'm fucking serious, Chloe. Butt out." He touched her shoulder. Beca stepped forward.

"If you think I'm going to let you anywhere near her, you're wrong. You're an _asshole_, Jesse. You always have been, and you always will. You _hurt_ her and I seriously want to kick you between the legs and break that ugly face because of that." Beca hid a smirk and looked down.

"Beca." Beca's smile dried out when Jesse addressed her.

"Don't talk to her."

"Beca look at me."

"Don't tell her what to do."

"You know, I'm real fucking sick of you dominating mine and Beca's relationship. Jesus Christ - you're everywhere, and it's annoying. Mind your own damn business for once." Beca's hands were shaking. She wasn't looking, but she knew Jesse was stepping closer to Chloe. She wanted to bend over on the grass and hurl.

"And _I'm_ tired of you treating her like shit! She's better than that!" Chloe screamed, pushing him again. This time, he backpedaled (maybe it was surprise at the strength Chloe harbored within her). "You think you love her? You don't know anything about love. If you loved her, Jesse, you would have _been _there. You would have been at the door on time with a cheap ass rose and held her hand and led her to the best night of her life. You would have given her _everything_!"

Beca looked up now, but it was to furrow her eyebrows at Chloe. Now she was uncertain about the state of the girl.

Chloe's eyes were wide and red, and Beca frowned.

"You would have danced with her, and you would have _told_ her you loved her. You would have been there for her. What kind of man _does_ this to the girl he loves? Leaves her stranded in the rain to fucking rot while you're off screwing some chick? You don't care about her. You don't love her, because if you did, this would be about making her happy. You're making this about you. You're breaking her because you thrive off the attention you get when you try and win her back. She is too beautiful for you and you might as well be an abusive ass bruising her arms. Because you broke her heart because she never loved you and you both know it.

"_I_ was there for her, you ignorant douchebag." Beca stepped closer again, but to Chloe. Jesse was doubling back deliberately. "_I _held her hand and _I _held her when she cried over you. I showed her what it felt like to be loved and I told her she was beautiful while you didn't even bother to call. You're an _asshole_ Jesse and you-"

"Chloe." Beca settled her hand on Chloe's elbow. Her voice was quiet, gentle, and Chloe might not have even heard her at all. But her words whipped into nothing and Chloe choked in a shaky breath, looking away from Jesse.

"Beca, I..." Jesse began once Chloe had turned away, covering her eyes with her shaking hand.

"Don't, Jesse. We're over. We were over a long time ago. We don't work. It's as simple as that." Jesse looked at her with clear eyes, and it was the first _real_ conversation they'd had in... in a long time. It was the truth. They simply didn't work, and they were lying to themselves if they thought they did. "Just go."

He stared at her emptily for a few moments. His eyes were lonelier than either of them had been when they were together. But he nodded. "I'm sorry, Beca."

"I know."

"I'll... see you around?"

He wouldn't. But she nodded anyway. "Goodbye, Beca."

She told him goodbye, and it was final, and she knew there was no misunderstanding. Nothing needed clearing. They were over. They were done. She was free.

And as he walked away, Beca laid her hand on the small of Chloe's back, and her other crawled down Chloe's wrist and laced their fingers together. "Come on, Chlo."

* * *

Neither of them said anything as Beca drove Chloe's car to Chloe's house. Chloe was rubbing her forehead, and her distress was an omen soaking the air. Beca wanted to feel their hands together as one again, but Chloe held hers alone in her lap. Too far away. She was closed off.

And Beca felt like a dick for ignoring her all day.

Before Beca could even switch off the ignition, Chloe was out of the car and stalking up the steps. She closed the door before Beca even reached the porch.

When Beca did enter inside, Sarah was looking up off at the stairs, the wake of Chloe's rampage. She looked to Beca with a raised eyebrow.

"She's... okay. I think." She chewed on the inside of her cheek. "If... you want me to go, it's cool. I get it."

A tickle of a smile perked the corner of Sarah's mouth. She shrugged. "Do what you like. I didn't see anything." And she walked off down the hall to her study, with a wiggle of her fingers over her shoulder.

Beca smiled gratefully before climbing up the stairwell and emerging into Chloe's room. She was on her bed, sitting cross-legged with her arms draped protectively about her lap, and staring off into a corner of the wall.

"You didn't need to do that," she spoke into the air. It felt like Chloe wasn't even there. Her statement wasn't so much as scolding, but a hinted thanks. Beca considered sitting next to her on the bed, but she opted for the desk chair near the foot of the mattress.

"Too late now."

Beca's stomach was twisted around a knife.

She needed to stop hinting and just _say_ it.

"I don't know why I recognize you." Beca forced her gaze through the thick, suffocating nothing blocked between them. She _forced_ Chloe to feel her. "Yeah, I had trouble with your name, and you were fuzzy in my head but... I recognized you. I knew that I knew you. And I've never learned someone as fast as I learned you." Beca wanted to stare at her hands and avoid this. But she couldn't.

She couldn't lose Chloe like this.

"And before you say it's your crazy hair... it's not. It's _you_. I know _you._" She sighed, biting her lip. "It was always you."

Chloe looked at her.

She _looked_ at her.

She really looked and everything they refused to stuff into Pandora's box and lock in a dark room was drooling around them. It divulged them into everything.

"You kissed me."

Beca had never felt so... so...

Together.

"Yeah."

"You were upset about Jesse, so you kissed me."

No. No it wasn't about Jesse. None of this was. The entire point was that Jesse was irrelevant and it was about Chloe.

"No."

"No?"

"That's not... Jesse isn't..." Beca inhaled deeply, shutting her eyes. "I kissed you because Jesse gave me a reason to allow myself to."

She opened her eyes.

"I kissed you because I wanted to."

Chloe only stared. Beca was withering under this spotlight and it was like belting out a song to a wild crowd, only to watch them fall into silence at the end of a number.

"Say something," she pleaded, inching the chair closer. "Please."

"I broke up with Tom."

Beca blinked. "What?"

Chloe sighed and moved to the edge of the frame. Her legs hung over the edge, and all Beca had to do was push forward just a little more, and their knees would graze. "Earlier. Before I was with you and... Jesse... I found him and I broke up with him."

Beca breathed.

Chloe licked her lips and Beca watched.

"I never wanted him," Chloe murmured.

"I know."

They had never been so connected.

"Me and Jesse were... a lie."

Chloe smiled softly. "'Jesse and I,'" she corrected.

Beca chuckled and tossed a small stuffed animal off the desk at Chloe, who giggled as she caught it.

Their smiles inked away slowly, fading to monotone faces. "I'm sorry about today," Beca went on. "I just... I couldn't do it. I didn't know what I wanted and I didn't want to mess this up more than I already have."

"You didn't mess this up." Chloe was biting her lip, looking down. "_This_ isn't messed up." She caught herself and smirked. "I mean, the situation is messed up but... us. We're not... ruined."

"We're not?"

Chloe smiled softly, almost sadly across at Beca. "Come here." She patted the blanket beside her, and moved over the slightest. When Beca sat down, leaving the slightest gap between them, Chloe draped her hand in the void. Beca filled it with her own, and their fingers intertwined.

"I thought it was... nice," Chloe clarified gently, tracing her thumb over Beca's knuckles. "The kiss. It was nice."

Beca looked up at Chloe. "Yeah?" The giddy, little-kid tone to her voice was enough to make Chloe swoon, and she met those willing eyes.

"Yeah."

"Did you-" Beca's words were so hasty and quick out of her mouth as soon as Chloe replied, that she stopped abruptly, like it was breaking some rule of smooth continuity. Chloe patiently waited for Beca to gather herself.

"Did you... mean it?" she asked hesitantly. "Before. With Jesse. I mean, I know you didn't say it outright, like you kind of just yelled at him a lot but like you hinted at it and I-"

"I love you."

She didn't blurt it. She didn't interrupt (well, she did, but not the traditional cutting-in). She calmly declared it, as if it was a backwards winding where Beca was the one to interrupt.

Beca, who only stared at her, swallowed. "You lov-"

This time, she did interrupt. But with a kiss that could cure cancer. That ended the war in Syria and brought soldiers home. A kiss that made pigs fly and provided nutrients to starving children. A kiss that solved every cliche the universe had etched into the world. It was as undeniably and painfully predictable as one a romantic comedy portrayed every day.

But it was sweet. And spontaneous. And very, very welcomed.

Chloe inhaled the rest of Beca's sentence, becoming the words and flooding Beca with herself. Her fingers danced along Beca's chin, cupping the line of it and guiding her as their lips danced a song that didn't know how to exist by itself.

It was a cure.

It didn't solve everything, but it cured them.

Beca's fingers knotted around the hem of Chloe's shirt, fisting it like the kiss was rougher and needier than it really was. Chloe almost smiled as she complied, pressing closer and settling Beca with her other hand on her waist. They settled each other. It was nothing like that kiss Friday night.

It was more.

* * *

They couldn't really keep their hands off each other. On any given day, _someone_ was dragged into the bathroom and hands would wander to far and it'd be too much of a strain for one of them before they stopped (preserving their dignity and not throwing it away in a squalid bathroom was important). They'd lock Chloe's bedroom door and someone would be pushed onto the mattress. Usually it never got very far because neither of them was ready for anything more, but also someone (usually Chloe) fell into a fit of giggles and got too ticklish for Beca's gentle fingers on her stomach. Beca would huff, sitting up with crossed arms (she was frankly adorable with her heated, flustered cheeks and mockingly vexed mien) and Chloe would urge her back into sweet kisses and cuddling (Beca hated it when Chloe used that word because it sounded way too lame, and Chloe would whisper the word into her ear while they were in the middle of doing such). It didn't matter, though, because it always led back to the chaste making out.

After a few weeks, when they finally figured out how to label each other (Chloe squealed endlessly and repeated _Beca Mitchell is my girlfriend_ for hours), they told Chloe's parents. They came to an agreement about carving Beca's parents away and out of their globe, because it wouldn't bring closure for anyone. It'd only hurt the both of them and create more problems than it would solve. Sarah was thrilled ("_Finally!_") and Paul rolled his eyes at his wife. But her enveloped Beca into a bear hug, nuzzling her hair playfully.

When Chloe wasn't looking, he tried to give Beca the "Don't Hurt Her" speech, but she cut him off.

"I know, Paul. I don't want to hurt her any more than you don't want me to."

He would have teared up if he wasn't so caught up in being tough. He adored Beca like a long-lost daughter, and he was the closest to a fatherly figure Beca had ever had.

They fought. A lot. Too much.

Beca was _always_ jealous. Whether it was a look from anyone in the hall, or a smile Chloe gave, it always led to jealousy. Tom and Chloe had settled some sort of friendship between them, and despite the fact they both had always known what Chloe and Tom had was nonexistent and intoxicatingly boring. When Chloe told Beca she had _volunteered_ herself as Tom's partner for a project in a Senior Photography Seminar, she was beyond pissed. They argued for an hour in Chloe's room before Chloe tried to storm out of the house, but Beca stopped her at her car.

She grabbed her wrist, and she looked down, shutting her eyes and inhaled still breaths of air. Chloe rolled her eyes, but she waited. And it was worth it.

"I love you too," she said. She said it. It was calm and gentle and affirmed. "I love you. I am so in love with you, Chloe, and I've never felt like this before. I don't know what to _do _with this love for you just sitting inside of me." She heaved a sigh, glancing away while tearing her lip apart with her teeth. Chloe softened - her eyes, her mien, all of it settled into a solace and she rested her hands on Beca's hips, pulling her closer in front of her and letting her girlfriend find the words.

"I just... I think about the fact that he's touched you and kissed you and now you're offering yourself to hang out with him and I feel sick." She swallowed thickly, refusing to meet Chloe's eyes. "I love you, but I don't know how to."

Chloe's smile was light as her fingers found their way beneath Beca's chin, lifting it into a light Beca would hide from. "You don't need to do anything different from what you're already doing. I know, Beca. I don't need extravagant gestures and declarations. You being... adorably jealous and protective is enough."

Beca blinked up at Chloe, chewing her inner lip before she chuckled quietly. "I'm not cute. I'm badass."

A grin stretched for miles along Chloe's mouth. "Sure you are."

* * *

"What are you doing?"

"Plugging in the VCR."

Beca shifted uncomfortably on Chloe's bed, her face scrunching up (quite adorably). "You know I don't like movies, Chlo."

"We're not watching a movie. We're watching cartoons."

"Cartoons."

"Yeah. Like _Winnie the Pooh_."

"Winnie the Pooh."

"Quit repeating everything I'm saying."

Beca heaved a heavy, audible sigh, the air puffing her cheeks out and flapping her lips. The same lips she bit on nervously. She didn't really want to disappoint Chloe, the girl who seemed so childishly excited about watching a little kid's show. Maybe she could play along for the night, just make her happy.

A few twisted wires and electrically-shocked yelps later, Chloe emerged from behind her TV with a damn wide grin and she sat cross legged on the bed beside Beca, who shot her an unamused, skeptical look.

"What?" Chloe asked.

"Why are we watching _Winnie The Pooh_?"

Chloe smirked, leaning into Beca. "Because it's adorable as heck, and I simply loved it as a kid?"

Beca shook her head, and motioned for Chloe to find another excuse.

Chloe exhaled, mockingly annoyed, and took Beca's hand. "I know you said you didn't want me to make a big deal about... your condition. But... I did a little research." Beca's stomach sunk. The first thought that scrambled inside of her was Chloe discovered she truly was a torn up freak and wanted no part of her.

But Chloe continued on without waiting for Beca's thoughts to conclude enough.

"...and - well, by research I mean Wikipedia. I called my doctor but I didn't understand anything she told me so I wound up back on the internet. At first, I thought you were gonna die but I realized I was on the page for Alzheimer's, and I swear I almost had a heart attack. Like, the _thought_ of you dying just made me-"

"Chloe."

"Right. Sorry. Um, I just... well... it said something about cartoons." At a raised eyebrow from Beca, Chloe huffed. "Fine, around the 'children' bit of the article, it talked about cartoons, but whatever. Still. And like it says that it's easier for the kid to watch because the characters all dress the same and y'know they're always funny colors or have weird-shaped heads. Like, they're impossible to mix up. And well you can tell animals apart, right?" She refused to go on until Beca exasperatedly nodded. "In _Winnie The Pooh_, they're all different animals. _And_ different colors with easily distinguishable voices. Plus it's like the coolest show ever. So I looked around in the basement and my mom helped me - by the way, I'm convinced she loves you more than me. If I had asked her to help me for _me_, she would have rolled her eyes and gone back to her study, but the _second _I mentioned your name-"

"_Chloe._"

But a smile had wiggled its way into Beca's voice, and it showed. It showed celestially.

"Yes?" Chloe teasingly answered, wiggling her ass on the bed and scooting closer to Beca.

"You're crazy."

Chloe pouted. "Not the word I was looking for, I hope you know."

"I know." Chloe was going to object more, but her words were smothered with a kiss that screamed _you're the best thing that has ever happened to me_ and '_crazy in love' you idiot_ and so, so much more. Chloe squealed into the toxic, creamy lips, grinning damn hard as her arms looped about Beca's neck. Beca would have been glad to take it farther (like she said, it was impossible to keep her hands off of her), but Chloe was dead-set on watching cartoons. Beca was pretty sure it was the worst heartbreak Chloe had endured when she realized they could never really watch a movie together like a normal couple (she felt like a really shitty girlfriend laden on Chloe's shoulders, but the first time she'd hinted her feeling as such, Chloe screeched that it was nonsense and they made out until Beca's lips were swollen).

So Beca settled back on the bed happily enough under Chloe's arm. It was weird, but it was because it was _normal_. She could pay attention, and she understood in the simplest of concepts. Mind you, the childish plotline was blurry for an 17-year-old girl for obvious reasons, but it was the first time probably _ever_ that Beca had understood something like this. And the fact Chloe cared enough to knowingly provide a memorable first like this for her was more than she could handle.

When Chloe's parents went out that night - (Chloe insisted they would be nothing but proper and display perfect prudence in their absence) - they marked off one of the most important firsts a girl can cherish. Chloe was nervous, she babbled endlessly and was insecure beyond comprehension. It was quite simple, really. It was standard, basic sex between two girls, but it was the first time Beca Mitchell had ever felt like someone cared, and like she was meant for something more.

It was sweet and slow and carefully maneuvered. It was a first neither of them ever wanted to be printed as unmemorable, and they fought for that. But it was a miraculous act within itself. It erased and cancelled out anything anyone might have said to Chloe (like a remark Tom once said that she should watch her weight) and it pushed every insecurity of being cheated on and left for someone else (the one thing that Jesse had left behind) and blossomed what they had together from a beautiful orchid into a world-wide garden of sumptuous and breathtaking love.

* * *

They'd been dating for three months and 21 days when Beca and Chloe broke up.

It was June 8th, and two acceptance letters, one from Brown and one Berkely, lay opened on the table.

One was addressed to a Ms. Rebeca Mitchell. The other: Ms. Chloe Beale.

The house was empty. No one was jealous, no one was sick, and everyone was disgustingly alone.


End file.
